After terror, flood ravages Swat - Pakistan - World - The Times of India

After terror, flood ravages Swat

Omer Farooq Khan, TNN, Aug 29, 2010, 01.19am IST

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MADYAN (Swat): Until three years ago, Pakistan's Swat valley was swarming with tourists all through summer. Then the Taliban took cover, forcing people to vacate the region as the Pakistani army and the militants fought a bitter turf war. 

For two long years, the conflict raged, with the security forces finally wresting the picturesque valley from the terror mongers. 

But for the people of Swat, there has been no respite: Flash floods in late July in the river Swat cut off Kalam, Bahrain, and Madyan from rest of Pakistan. Miles of road connecting the three main towns of upper Swat have been washed away by swirling waters of the river. 

About 300,000 people in these towns are marooned. Multistorey hotels perched on river banks have disappeared. There has been no electricity for weeks, and telephone connection is non-existent. The people swear they have never seen the river rise so much. "The waters have a strange, ferocious sound, which I've never heard before. Gushing waters knocked down the walls and doors of our house. We had no option but to flee. My children and wife are sleeping in the open,'' said Adalat Khan, a resident of Madyan, who had built a beautiful house by the riverbank after working in Kuwait for over 20 years. "I'd never imagined that my life's work would vanish in one night,'' he lamented. 

Majana Bibi (70) of Madyan, who has spent most of her life raising other people's children for her family's livelihood, had a tragic story to tell. 

She was 30km away in Mingora town, where she has worked for the last several decades, when the Swat river broke bank. Her house along the river was among the first to collapse. It was after a week that she learnt that none of her family member survived. "Everything is lost,'' she said in Pashto, her eyes looking despairingly at the sky. The wrath of nature took away her daughter, two married sons and their wives and her seven grandchildren. 

Most people sustain their living through cattle. With the floodwaters destroying livestock, they are now deprived of their single source of living. Going through the villages and towns amid the damaged and destroyed structures, it's evident that the people here will have to begin their lives from scratch. 

For people relying on tourism industry, this is a fell blow. Last year, some 60,000 people protested against Taliban for robbing them of their jobs as part of the tourism industry. But the devastation caused by rains has sealed their fate for years to come. 

"Helicopters hover over and airdrop small packets of edibles over which people grapple," said a victim. Their hopes have been shattered and overtaken by despair. Battered by floodwaters, the displaced people are fearing darker days ahead. Uncertain about the future, those who have escaped death are now at the mercy of diseases and pandemic.

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