MUSA KHEL: As many as 12 people were drowned in the floodwaters when a dam in Musa Khel area of Balochistan swept away following the torrential rains on Monday.

Deputy Commissioner Yasir Iqbal Dashti said that rescue officials fished out bodies of four people. However, they were trying to find another eight people drowned in the gushing waters, he added. He said hundreds of houses were collapsed during the recent spell of heavy rains.

According to official data, the death toll in Balochistan has reached 194. Floods have wreaked havoc on villages in Balochistan and southern Punjab, leaving the flood-hit people trapped under the open sky, waiting for some aid from the government.

The heavy rain has also left the sewerage system of many areas choked, forcing the people to reach their destinations after passing through the dirty water accumulated in the streets and roads. Dozens of villages in Sibbi and Kot Chattha submerged

Dozens of villages were flooded in Lehri tehsil, Sibbi district, Balochistan due to the inflow of 140,000 cusecs of water in Lehri River. Bakhtiar Abad Domki, Dargah Katbar Sharif, Tanya and Wazira are among the villages that were submerged.

The road, connecting Dargah Katbar Sharif to other areas of Balochistan, has also fallen prey to the flood. Residents of Dargah Katbar Sharif and adjoining villages are trapped in flood under the open sky. Rescue teams have not been able to reach the flood-hit areas due to a lack of land connectivity. The villagers of Dargah Katbar Sharif, suffering from a lack of food including clean drinking water, are waiting for aid under the open sky.

After submerging dozens of villages in Lehri tehsil, the flood is now moving towards Naseerabad. Some of the villages of Lehri tehsil including Allah Wah Trihar, Murad Wah Rilo, Gulab Khan Rilo, Mian Khan Wazir and Machhi Thidi Brahmani have been completely submerged. The standing cotton crop over thousands of acres has been destroyed; hundreds of tube wells and cattle heads have been washed away in gushing floods. The land connection of Lehri tehsil with the rest of Balochistan has been cut off due to the washing away of roads in floods.