MANSEHRA, Oct 30: The people of the Dader Qadeem village, who were hit by flash floods over three months ago, have not been rehabilitated yet.

As winter approaches fast, there are fears that the people, who have living in tents and some with their relatives since the flash-floods devastated their houses, will be facing great hardships due severe cold and rainfall.

On July 23 this year, around 115 villagers died when the flash-floods caused by torrential rains washed away the village, 35km from here. At least 13 other villagers, who are still missing, are feared to have died.

The government has paid Rs10.2 million as compensation to 102 families of those who died in this tragedy. Each family has been given Rs100,000. The families of those who went missing have not been given any compensation.

The head of the Dader rehabilitation committee, Syed Raza Hussain Shah, with other affected members, while criticizing the local administration for failing to rehabilitate the affected people, told this correspondent that even after three months of the tragedy, “we are still living in a miserable condition.”

He said education of their children had been badly affected and many diseases had spread among the villagers who, he added, had been living in unhygienic conditions.

The villagers told Dawn that they had earlier been allotted 30 kanals (about four acres of land), but the local administration had later taken back from them the documents of the land. They said the administration had assured them that they would be allotted 18 kanals at some other place, but it had not kept its promise.

Jamaat-i-Islami deputy chief Younas Khattak said they had one million rupees for the rehabilitation of the affected families, and if the government allotted land, they would help them to construct houses.

He asked where the millions of rupees the government had collected from donors’ agencies world-wide had gone.