KASUR The flood in Sutlej is wreaking havoc in more than 60 villages and isolated hamlets of the district.

The rising water level and a lack of flood mitigation plan and resources are adding to the miseries of the affected people. A newborn died in Chanda Singhwala village because of a lack of any medical facility there. Dozens of houses have been either demolished or swept away by water currents, this correspondent saw during a visit to the flooded areas.

Of the affected villages, Masteke, Saifal Wali Basti, Klunger, Dhoopsarri, Mabboke and Bhikhi Wind villages, which are located across the river, are the worst sufferers. These villages have been cut off from the other areas because of a lack of boats. Moreover, the administration has no trained operators for motorboats.

At present, the district has seven boats. Of them three have been sent to Kanganpur and the remaining are busy in the flooded Ganda Singhwala. The affected villages have a population of 100,000. However, there is no count of those living in isolated settlements from Ganda Singhwala to Kanganpur.

The affected people are facing food and medicines shortage. Some people have to cross the river either by swimming or floating in tubes to get food for the stranded.

Muhammad Nadeem of Saifal Wali Basti told Dawn that his village had been surrounded by water. There was no medical facility in his village and he had come to the Talwaar Post, floating with the help of a log, to get medicines for his two younger sisters who were suffering from high temperature.

Another man, a shepherd, said people staying on the roofs were not ready to leave their houses because of the fear that these would be looted in their absence.

A district official said a few members of his team were reluctant to go across the river as some villages, including Masteki and Chanda Singhwala, were on the Zero Line and the members feared that their boats might enter the Indian territories. He said in papers the civil defence had hundreds of volunteers in the area, but on the ground there was none.

Hussain Khan Wala Union Council Nazim Iftikhar Shakir told Dawn by telephone that more than half of the villages in his union council were across the river. He said crops in these villages had been totally destroyed and Chabailian Wala Chugga, Bhedian Usman, Ratnewala, Ban Bodlan and Shaikh Uman had been inundated. He said the district administration or any other organisation had not reached these villages for relief activities. He said Chabailian Wala Chugga had been cut off from rest of the area.

It is also learnt that the district administration did not vaccinate the livestock despite a flood forecast. Farm workers, already suffering from poverty, have lost the hope of getting wages form the landlords whose crops have been swept away.

Sakina Bibi, who had come to Talwaar Post to take medicine from the base medical camp, said foul smell and humidity had made the life miserable. She said skin and stomach diseases had broken out in the affected villages.

Muhammad Waqas Abid, chief executive of a non-government organisation which has set up a relief camp in the flooded area, said the area was short of medicines, trained medical staff and food.