Girah Hayat area’s flood affected households spending winters in tents

About 155 households of the area were displaced earlier in August last year

Mahreen Khalid

About 155 residents of Girah Hayat Badar area of Kulachi tehsil of Dera Ismail Khan district have been forced to live in tents in winter after August floods washed away their homes.

Muhammad Imran, a local used to work in import and export business in Lahore before the floods; however, after floods has been forced to quit his work and stay in his village.

He is currently working on reconstruction of his home from the Rs 400,000 compensation; the provincial government had paid to him. Besides, he is also taking care of his family members who are living inside a tent. “I just want to construct my home as soon as possible so that my family can start living under a roof and I can go back to my work,” he told TNN.

Similarly, the floods have been testing times for both the males as well as the females.

Haseena, 60 was asleep with her children at around 2am when the raging waters inundated their village. In the rush of the hour, they managed to escape with whatever on their backs; however, lost all their belongings to the flood. She said that currently they were living in tents and both the males and females to head to agricultural fields to relieve themselves due to absence of latrines.

Similarly, she said that government has not made any medical arrangements for them. Authorities have provided two to three blankets to a 10 member’s family and ration is also issued in the same way. “It is getting difficult to spend winter nights and days in tents,” she said.

Besides, she said that out of 155 families around 30 have even not received compensation from authorities so far.”Those who have received compensation will manage to reconstruct their homes one or the other way; but people like me who have not received any compensation from government have nowhere to go,” she said.

Reshum, 32 a local laborer has also lost his house to floods twice. Reshum area’s is rain fed and rains are both a blessing and calamity for it.

Noor Zaman, focal person of Girah Hayat’s flood damaged houses committee said that they have received a bag of cement per bag while received rations twice. He said that Al-Khidmat Foundation, Tehrik Labbaik Pakistan, Daman Organization were currently active in the relief activities in the area.

However, he said that the destruction of local embankment, river waters was still flooding their village. “We have on time and occasion asked the district administration and irrigation department to divert and store this water for using for agricultural purposes; however, despite these entreaties there has been little action from authorities,” he said.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Dera Ismail Khan Tariq Mahmood said that most of the district rural areas were dependent on rain for their crops; therefore, authorities have allowed this water to reach local rain fed rains.

ADC Tariq said that about 50 percent of destroyed houses were constructed on natural drainage and were destroyed after rain inundated them. However, he said that KP government was paying Rs 400,000 to owners of completely destroyed houses while Rs 160,000 to partially damaged ones.

District Disasters Management Unit (DDMU) Dera Ismail Khan head Muhammad Shahryar said that authorities have registered 130,000 destroyed and damaged houses in the district so far. Besides, he said that authorities were also working on the flood drainage to keep them clean so there are no major damages in future.