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DERA GHAZI KHAN/ MUZAFFARGARH The tehsil headquarters of Jampur in Rajanpur district was inundated on Thursday after five-day efforts made by the administration to save the town failed.
Just before the floodwaters submerged the town, about 200,000 people were seen moving out in a haphazard manner. The helpless inhabitants, including women and children, got out of the danger zone on their own.
Still, hundreds of families were in the town, marooned on roofs of houses and buildings because they could not afford the transport cost.
Resident Bilal told Dawn that his house had been destroyed and no one had come to rescue his family.
He said the town was under five-foot deep water and there was no boat to evacuate them.
Dilshad Quraishi, a lecturer at the local government college, said people had been trying over the past week to save the town and had also made a lot of calls to the provincial government and district administration, “but no one came to our help”.
Another resident, Haroon Rasheed Birmani, said the district administration had not made any contingency plan which could have eased people's hardship.
Floodwaters have entered business centres, the tehsil headquarters hospital, graveyard, grid station and hundreds of houses in Shah Jamal Colony, Mamdowala, Haidria Colony, Chandia Colony, Dara Baghwala, Madina Town, government girls' college, courts, Kotla Pirawn, Dara Ghayanwala, Dara Bhattiwala, Muhammadia Colony, Shah Chowk, Saddar bazaar and Demes Chowk.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the flood-hit area of Ada Rindwala and a relief camp in Kot Chhuta. There were allegations that the administration had made temporary arrangements at the relief camp to show its performance to the chief minister. Some people said no official was there after the chief minister had left.
According to sources, a veterinary doctor gave a briefing about the medical camp for affected people.
After Kot Chhuta, the chief minister went to Jampur where hundreds of people complained about indifference and inefficiency of the administration and demanded a rescue operation.
No arrangements for food and medicines have been made in Jampur.
The chief minister suspended Deputy District Officer (revenue) Asif Lodhi and censured District Coordination Officer Iftikhar Rasool.
A local lawyer said visits by the chief minister diverted the attention of the administration and instead of rescuing affected people the officials gathered for protocol duty.
About 80 per cent of the town is under at least four-foot deep water.
Meanwhile, people in the submerged area of Kot Mithan Sharif in Rujhan have not received any relief supplies. Hundreds of people are without shelter.
In Dera Ghazi Khan, torrents from Wadoor hill have inundated roads, suspending traffic.
A high flood breached the Kachhi canal bank and broke the siphon on the DG canal, threatening inundation of Dera Ghazi Khan town. However, the water was diverted towards the DG canal, affecting the suburbs of Choti Zarin and Khanpur Munjwala.
Local people are trying to provide food and medicines to the affected people in the absence of any relief work by the government.
In Muzaffargarh, the Indus flood and breaches in the Muzaffargarh canal continued to devastate vast areas of Kot Addu and Alipur tehsils, rendering more people homeless and forcing them to spend the night in the open amid rains that continued throughout the day.
Troops, Rangers and navy personnel were trying to save the Pak Arab Refinery (Parco) and a depot of Pakistan State Oil (PSO). Floodwater is 8km away from the refinery. Troops are trying to construct a dyke to save the refinery.
Officials said Muzaffargarh had become the worst-affected district where more than 700,000 people had been displaced and hundreds of villages destroyed by floods in the Chenab and the Indus and breaches in the TP link, Tulhairy branch and Muzaffargarh canals.
A flood wave from Kot Addu reached Sanwan and Gurmani towns and moved towards Qasba Gujrat where Parco and the PSO depot are located.
In Kot Addu, the Kapco power plant is surrounded by water and its staff colony has been evacuated.
Thousands of people have been rendered homeless in Sanwan, Gurmani, Mahmoodkot, Seetpur, Dhaka and Kuchha areas of Alipur and Ghazi Ghat. Breaches in the Muzaffargarh canal near Mahmoodkot and Sheikhu Sugar Mills in Sanwan have displaced thousands of people.
In Alipur, 63 mauzas have been submerged.
People are seen sitting along roads or living in schools, hospitals and government buildings.
Relief camps have been set up in textile mills in Khanpur Bagga Sher. The administration is providing meals to about 200 families of Kot Addu and Daira Din Pannah. People complained that the camps had been set up about 50km away for the affected area. They said camps could have been be set up in nearby Chowk Sarwar Shaheed.
A revenue official said the government relief camps had about 50,000 people, while more than 600,000 others were in the open or had taken shelter with their relatives.
POWER PLANTS CLOSED
Two power plants facing flood threat in Kot Addu were closed in the evening as a 'precautionary measure', Pepco sources told our staff reporter in Lahore.
Authorities are striving to save the 900MW Kapco and 700MW AES Lalpir plants.
The closure raised Pakistan Electric Power Company's shortfall to over 2,000 megawatts.
According to an official, the government had earlier asked Kapco to decrease power generation because of a cut in demand after transmission lines were destroyed by floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
