PESHAWAR, July 1: With the River Kabul continuing to rise to dangerous levels on Friday, flood waters inundated the suburbs of Nowshera city and engulfed 200 houses of a village in the neighbouring Mardan district.

Officials said that the floods had claimed two lives in Nowshera district. The victims have been identified as 14-year-old Sardar Gul and 35-year-old Sher Zaman, and their bodies have been found.

An official of the Flood Warning Centre said that Nowshera city was now only three feet above the water level, noting that Nowshera was 946 feet above the sea level and the water level had risen to 943 feet.

“The fast rising level of the River Kabul may swamp Nowshera city,” said the liaison officer of the centre, Abdul Wali Yousafzai.

According to the NWFP Flood Warning Centre, the water discharge in River Kabul at Nowshera was recorded at 169,600 cusecs at 7pm and the level of all the tributaries was also increasing.

Officials said that the flood water had swept away a police post in the Nowshera cantonment, while a back-channel flow from River Kabul had inundated about 200 houses in Sanobar village in Mardan district.

They said that 10 more houses had collapsed in Pir Sabbaq village in Nowshera. The inmates of Azakhel refugee camp had abandoned their homes when flood waters entered the camp.

The River Kabul at Warsak was still rising and its discharge was recorded at 107,180 cusecs, while the River Swat at Munda remained in high flood with an outflow of 51,077 cusecs.

Provincial relief commissioner Ghulam Farooq Khan said that the flash floods devastated residential areas across five districts of the Frontier province, displacing some 9,000 people and affecting 86 villages.

Official figures indicate that 1,479 katcha houses had been partially damaged in the flood-hit districts. But the officials were unable to assess the losses because vast tracts of land were under water.

The relief commissioner told reporters that Kabul and Swat rivers had caused widespread damage in the five districts of Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Swat and Chitral.

Mr Farooq said that the revenue staff had compiled a report about the damages. Initial reports indicate that 218,519 kanals of farmland had been inundated.

The commissioner said that in Peshawar district alone 23 villages had been affected and 550 families displaced. About 13,550 kanals of agricultural land on the outskirts of the provincial capital have been inundated.

In Nowshera district, the River Swat has swamped 11 villages and left more than 2,800 people homeless. Some 153 houses along the river banks have been destroyed.

Nowshera is one of the worst-affected areas where the flash floods have affected 11 villages, damaging 2,877 houses and inundating 52,100 acres of land.

Mr Farooq said that the flood waters had affected a number of families in Swat and Chitral districts and washed away their houses. About relief activities, he said that camps had been set up in the affected areas where food relief packets were being distributed among the affected families.

After a break of one day, the Gilgit River resumed eroding localities in Gilgit on Friday morning. Hundreds of trees were uprooted and vast crop fields in Baseen Khari were destroyed.

The local administration said the river water suddenly changed its course and encircled farmlands. The local administration, Rangers, NAPWD workers and police were conducting rescue operations and strengthening and building new protective dykes to stop the erosion of land alongside the river.