Extent of flood damage stuns Pakistan

Amanda Hodge in the Australian: Floodwaters that swept across huge swaths of northwest Pakistan at the weekend, killing more than 1100 people, began subsiding yesterday. As they receded, they revealed a devastated landscape that officials warned had pushed back the province almost 50 years.

Areas across southern Pakistan remained on high alert as unprecedented monsoon rains travelled south and swollen rivers in Sindh and Punjab spread across heavily populated floodplains. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti warned that the true magnitude of the disaster was yet to be calculated, and the death toll could rise.

"Accessibility to (thousands of) trapped people in several valleys of Malakand is a major problem," Mr Hoti said. "The destruction caused by heavy rains and flash floods, particularly in Malakand, is beyond our imagination. We are facing the worst-ever natural disaster in our history that has pushed the province almost 50 years back."

Mr Hoti said the troubled province had lost a major portion of its infrastructure. Entire villages, roads, bridges, crops and telecommunications facilities had been washed away by the floodwaters, and large portions of northwest Pakistan remained submerged….