Fears of disease as more than 1,400 villages under water after three large rivers overflow their banks
I
man Salim is used to seeing flood waters in the field of lush lilypads next to her home in the village of Kamanwala. But nothing prepared her for this week, when torrential monsoon rains that broke a 49-year record lashed the area, flooding her house with water that rose above her chest.
“The whole house has drowned. The water left nothing,” the 24-year-old said.
Kamanwala, just outside the city of Sialkot, from where the mountains of Kashmir can be seen on a clear day, is among more than 1,400 villages in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province flooded after three large rivers – the Sutlej, Chenab and Ravi – overflowed their banks because of heavy rain and the release of water from over-full dams in neighbouring India.
