JALAL WALA, Pakistan, (Reuters) – When the waters came, Allah Yar and his family ran for their lives. Now, four weeks later the 67-year-old has come back to his village to see what is left of his house.
All that remains is a hill of bricks, the brushwood once used for the roof tangled up within it. A few scraps of coloured clothes stand out among the rubble.
“I never saw such a flood in my life,” says Allah Yar as he looks at what was once three houses for him, his two brothers and their families in the village of Jalal Wala in southern Punjab.
“We had to rush out and run for our lives. There was no time to collect our things, even our clothes.”
Now he hopes to build just a wall and a roof for now so he can bring the rest of his family home.
It is a story repeated across southern Punjab, one of the worst-hit areas in the flooding which swept down from the north-west and then south towards the Arabian Sea, leaving one fifth of the countryside behind it under water.
With the waters receding, those families who can return home are beginning to do so, trailing along embankments across the region in bullock carts loaded with children and goats, driving their cattle before them.
Others are still stranded, dependent on boats or helicopters to bring them food and medicine.
The road to Jalal Wala is still partially under water – so much so that villagers can catch fish in it. The land around is still submerged, trees and a few houses rising above the waterline, crops rotting in the fields.
But it is accessible by truck or jeep and the villagers who have come back are trying to make the best of what little they have left.
Some grains have been rescued from gunny sacks and spread out in the sun to dry, giving off a powerful stench of fermentation.
The electricity is back on and the mobile phone networks are functioning — Allah Yar is able to call his son in Karachi to tell him about the damage.
As the water recedes, it is also leaving behind vast lakes of stagnant water, and with it disease is spreading.
In the nearby village of Lassori Khar, the army has set up a medical centre in a local school, men, women and children queuing outside. About 700 people a day come to these centres.
They show no clear signs of malnourishment and the children still manage a shy smile. Sickness, however, is on the rise.
