With onset of the fresh monsoon spell on Wednesday, flood-ravaged south and northern parts of Balochistan have once again started receiving heavy downpour increasing the plight of calamity-hit people to manifold.
“As many as 230 people, women and children among them, have died in rain related incidents since June, 1, 2022,” Director General Provincial Disaster Management Authority Saleh Nasar said while talking to newsmen.
Flash floods from intense rainfall have resulted in damage, either completely or partially to 26 897 houses in the province while it took the lives of 0.2 million cattle.
A large number of villages in Naseerabad, Mekran, Zhob and Loralai divisions of Balochistan are inundated in the flood water with thousands of people displaced. Crops on about 0.2 million acres of acre land have been washed away by the flood water.
Though, provincial government along with Pak Army, PAF, FC, PDMA is striving hard to reach out to the affected people, yet incessant rain, damaged communication structure and meager resources, the relief operation has done very little to the people waiting for immediate assistance.
Hundreds of families are forced to live under open sky after flood water entered the human settlements mainly in areas including Naseerabad, Jaffarabad, Jhal Magsi, Sohbat Pur, Lehri, Sibi, Kohlu, Lasbela, Qila Saifullah, Chaman, Zhob, Pishin and Bolan.
On account of continuous rain, several dams have reached their maximum capacity leaving no other option for the government but to open the spillways.—APP
