DADU, Aug 25: About 61 villages in the riverine areas of Dadu and Jamshoro districts were inundated as the Indus river rose further on Sunday, forcing hundreds of villagers to move to safe places and set up makeshift settlements along the Larkana-Sehwan (L-S) dyke.

The affected villagers complained that nobody had come to their rescue. They had to spend all their savings on hiring a boat to move their families, cattle and valuable belongings to safe places, they complained.

Many families have set up makeshift homes along the L-S dyke near Dadu and Sita towns, where they face shortage of food and fodder for the cattle.

Talking to Dawn at the L-S dyke, a villager Ghulam Qadir said that he had paid Rs5,000 to a boatman to shift his cattle heads, family members and other valuable belongings to the dyke. Nobody came to his rescue, he said.

He said that his cattle had fallen sick after having drunk stagnating rainwater but no official of animal husbandry department had arrived at the dyke to vaccinate them.

Dadu Deputy Commissioner Nasir Abbas Soomro said that 40 villages in the kutcho area of Dadu district and 21 villages in Jamshoro were flooded due to rise in the river. The administration had set up 141 relief camps to provide shelter to the flood-hit people and so far 161 people had reached two relief camps, he said.

He said that 11,136 people were affected by the flood and 77,264 acre land was inundated. But most people were going to their relatives in towns and other villages, he said.

He said the families settled at L-S dyke would be provided all facilities.

Executive engineer Iqbal Hussan Palejo who along with a team of irrigation officials led by Chief Engineer Sukkur Barrage, Noor Hassan Larik, visited the L-S bund told Dawn that 400,000 cusecs water was flowing in the river, which was not dangerous.

The situation would remain unchanged for further three or four days then the water level would start receding, he said.

About Manchhar Lake, he said the lake’s water level was 112.1 feet RL at present and its maximum level was fixed at 122 feet RL. The lake’s embankment had been raised to 128 feet after breaches in Manchhar during 2010 super flood, he said.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad Commissioner Jamal Mustafa Syed told journalists after visiting the river embankments in Shaheed Benazirabad district on Sunday there was no serious danger.

Embankments had been reinforced and raised by six feet in the wake of super flood of 2010, he said. However, he said, directives had been issued to patrol the embankments round the clock.