CHITRAL: More than 600 households of Reshun village in Upper Chitral are without drinking water after it was hit by flash flood caused by torrential rains on Wednesday evening.

Also, the upper parts of Chitral remained cut off from rest of the country as the area’s bridge was swept away by the floodwater.

The villagers said that they rushed to the hillock and places at height when they received phone calls from shepherds in the highland about the flood.

Panah Khan, a local resident, said that intensity of the flood was so high that they felt the whole village was jolting like in earthquake.

He said that they had lost their drinking and irrigation water systems to the flood when they descended from the hill on Thursday morning.

“The intake points of the irrigation channels have been washed away and it could take months to rehabilitate them.

“During this time, our crops of rice and maize, vegetable and fruit orchards of grapes, peach, apple and pear will wither away,” he said, adding that the village was known for its fertile land.

He said that the RCC suspension bridge had earlier been washed away by glacial lake outburst flood in 2015 and it was reconstructed only 10 months ago by the C&W department at a cost of Rs35 million.

The volunteers of Al-Khidmat Foundation were seen busy in construction of a makeshift bridge to reconnect the two parts of the village divided by a stream and by late Thursday they completed the work but it was not useable for women, children and patients.

The fl ash flood caused by torrential rains also hit the Golen valley the other night and washed away four bridges and roads, disconnecting the valley from rest of the district.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2020