SIALKOT: Rehabilitation work has yet to be started in flood-hit areas of the Sialkot district where flash flood of rivers Chenab and Tavi and seasonal nullahs rampaged scores of villages one week ago.

This correspondent visited villages in Bajwat, Head Marala, Chaprar and Pasrur where floodwater has receded. People have started returning to their villages only to helplessly assess the scale of devastation wreaked by the flooding.

In villages Khojey Chak, Meehaal and Salehpur, the River Tavi flooding damaged all houses. Streets are littered with the remains of buffaloes, cows, goats, donkeys, dogs and a foul smell in the air never goes away.

Know more: New floods multiply problems of marooned people, says survey

They said their journey to their homes was not less than an expedition as broken roads and bridges and water-filled ditches turned their once a half an hour drive into a 10-hour long journey.

Pylons, poles and trees uprooted by the flood were still lying along the dilapidated rood.

There has been no power supply to 85 villages for the last 11 days.

Despite all odds, people seem determined to defeat the gloomy trial. The students of the Government Girls’ Primary School, Meehaal-Bajwat, have started going to school.

They were sitting on a street as the school building has developed cracks. In Chaprar, the flooding eroded the bridge over the Rive Tavi due to which 20 villages have been cut off from the district.

The Government Degree College for Boys, Pasrur, is still under the floodwater and the classes are being held at a private service station along the Pasrur-Narowal Road.The Government Postgraduate College for Women, Narowal, has also been inundated and the college management has declared holidays.

District Coordination Officer (DCO) Nadeem Sarwar said 32 people were killed in the flash flood, roof collapses and other rain-related incidents in the district, while paddy crops on 15,000 acres were badly damaged.

The DCO said only relief and rescue activities were being undertaken and once this phase was over, the rehabilitation and financial compensation process would be started.

DISEASES: Waterborne diseases like gastro, diarrhea, high fever and fungus and skin diseases have broken out in flood-hit villages in Bajwat, Head Marala, Chaprar and Pasrur. Though the government and charities have set up medical camps, the measure seems insufficient.

Doctors at medical camps by Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation and Al-Khidmat Foundation said the number of patients of gastro, diarrhea, cholera, fungus and skin allergies was on the rise.

They said most of the affected people were women and children. They said the provision of potable water could counter the epidemics.

PML-N MNA Chaudhry Armughan Subhani said the Sialkot health department had shown very poor performance in countering the diseases.

Executive District Officer Dr Ziaul Hasan said they were fully aware of the situation and had established 30 medical camps. He said it was not possible for the department to set up a medical camp in every flooded village.

The EDO said the snake biting incidents were also on the rise, as 15 cases of snake-biting had been reported in a week.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2014