Sitting at a relief camp set up by a local businessman in Khandar village outside the northwestern town of Nowshehra, Bushra Begum cradled her youngest son in her lap. "He is one year old and ill," she said softly.

She has not seen her other two children since monsoon rain water submerged their house last week.

"The water started entering our house late on Thursday night and by 6.00am it was all under water and we climbed on the roof to save ourselves.

"My two children went missing in the flooding and so far there is no trace of them," she told AFP.

Women and children stumbled towards Doctor Khalid Khan at the makeshift camp, with problems including skin disease, acute diarrhoea and fever.

Their men took refuge in mosques and stood cursing the government in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

"God destroy this government. They have not helped us during this disaster," shouted Mohammad Shah Fahad as he stood on a roadside.

An AFP reporter travelling through Nowshehra witnessed scenes of massive destruction. Flood waters had washed away part of the highway, private tractors were removing mud to make way for traffic.

Petrol pumps, homes, shops and markets were under water. The stink of rotting animal carcasses was everywhere.

"It was so sad. The bodies of two young boys floated in the water outside the village. People took them out and buried them after offering funeral prayers," said Iqbal Ahmed in Khandar.

With the rains now over, local merchants installed generators to pump water out of ruined shops and businesses. Other residents used buckets to try to empty the water from their homes in Nowshehra town.

An AFP reporter saw dozens of people gathered around a hand-pump in an effort to get drinking water.

Nizam Gul, another resident, said diarrohea was widespread especially among children, but there was no medicine available.

"The relief camps set up by authorities are just showpieces, there is no food or medicine available there," Gul said as a municipal truck carried away the swollen corpse of a dead horse.

"When the flood came, nobody came to our rescue. We spent two nights on the roof in the rain without food and water," Mohammad Tariq, a cloth merchant told AFP, adding millions of rupees (tens of thousands of dollars) of goods had been destroyed.

Farzana Bibi, a 35-year-old woman from Badrashi village was begging for food and water after her house and livestock were swept away.

"The flood also took away my two sons, seven and 10. I do not know where they are now. My husband worked at a spare parts shop in town which was also damaged. We've lost everything," Bibi told AFP.

Most of the communication network was down in and around Nowshehra. There was no power. The town's Rehman Baba Colony of around 500 houses was submerged under 30-feet (nine metres) of water.

"People were barely able to save their lives from flooding and left everything behind," Mohammad Ayaz told AFP.

"I took my family to a relative's house and came back to take out water as its level has receded," he said.

"Since Thursday there has been no electricity or running water in Nowshehra. Authorities have also not provided drinking waster."

earlier related report
Flood damage hampering Pakistan relief efforts: UN
Geneva (AFP) Aug 2, 2010 - The United Nations said Monday that key bridges and roads have been destroyed or washed away in Pakistan's flood-hit zones, where some 27,000 people are still waiting to be evacuated.

"Rescue remains a key priority in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for 27,000 people who are still waiting to be evacuated from flooded areas," said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

However, relief workers were having difficulties reaching the affected areas.

A team of five UN officials who travelled to assess the situation in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday concluded that the "main issue is accessibility to the area due to destruction of roads and bridges."

The group led by the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Magwanja had to fly in through helicopter to Nowshera and Charsadda as there was "no road accessibility to the districts."

They also had to drop a planned visit to Swat and Shangla districts as weather conditions there were too adverse.

In Charsadda, where roads were closed over the weekend, the UN team found that the eight health facilities onsite have all been damaged.

It was therefore seeking tents to house these facilities, which urgently needed medicines as stocks have been destroyed by the floods.

Diarrhoea treatment kits were among items required as cases rise due to the contaminated water.

Needs were similiar in Nowshera where hospitals have been destroyed.

Access to the district's Jalozai camp with a population of over 100,000 displaced people was also cut off for three days after a main bridge linking the camp was destroyed.

"Other badly hit areas, including Lower and Upper Dir, remain largely inaccessible to humanitarian actors," said OCHA in its situation update.

OCHA assessed that an estimated 150,000 families across the province needed emergency assistance, such as food, clean water, tents and medical services.

It also warned that weather services have forecasted fresh rains which are due to affect the Sindh and Punjab districts.

An estimated 1.5 million people have been affected by Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years brought on by monsoon rains, which killed more than 1,200 people across the northwest.

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