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As rain continued pelting parts of Pakistan Tuesday, officials said relief efforts in remote areas devastated by flooding remained a significant challenge.

The flooding -- caused by torrential monsoon rains -- may have killed as many as 1,500 people, a government official told reporters. As floodwaters recede, the count may surge higher.

A Pakistani Red Crescent official told CNN that nearly 2.5 million have been affected by the floods.

But with floodwaters washing out roads, highways and bridges, many of them have remained out of help's reach.

"This is the key issue for the next day, to find [a] solution to access the population in remote valleys," Jean-Marc Favre of the International Committee for the Red Cross told CNN Tuesday.

Displaced people -- including thousands of Afghan refugees -- were crammed into public buildings and schools, officials said.

"Those who survived these punishing floods are still at grave risk. They are exposed and vulnerable and urgently need our help," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said. "The Pakistani people of this region have been serving as the generous hosts of more than a million Afghan refugees. Now is the time for the international community to demonstrate the same kind of solidarity with them."

Pakistani authorities are also confronting another key issue: making sure flood-ravaged areas do not become easy targets for a Taliban resurgence.

Water-borne diseases are also a "serious" threat, Favre said.

"Our doctors are reporting many cases of respiratory illness and diarrhea," said Annie Foster, Save the Children's associate vice president for humanitarian response. "If these illnesses are not treated promptly, they can be life-threatening to babies and young children."

Some residents have said rescue and relief efforts are not moving quickly enough.

"There is no medicine for us. There is no water for us. There is no meal for us. We don't have anything," flood victim Ekram Safi said Sunday.

Water has started to recede from much of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, leaving scenes of destruction.

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In village after village, especially those next to rivers, buildings were demolished. One official predicted recovery could take years.

A helicopter tour organized by the Pakistani army revealed entire villages under water along the Swat River, where military officials said five times the normal amount of water was flowing.

Some 1.5 million people have been affected, of whom 500,000 have been displaced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

The U.N. World Food Programme said nearly 980,000 people had lost their homes or been displaced in four districts -- Nowshera, Charsadda, Mardan and Peshawar.

About 80,000 homes were destroyed in the four districts, and another 50,000 damaged, it said. Nowshera district showed the highest number of affected people, with more than 650,000, while Charsadda suffered serious damage, losing all its crops, it said.

In one case, villagers pitched tents in a nearby graveyard after floodwaters destroyed their homes.

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The U.N.'s refugee commission said it aimed to reach 250,000 of the country's most vulnerable with non-food items like tents, blankets, buckets, plastic sheets and kitchen sets. The agency said it had delivered 10,000 tents to local authorities in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and plans to procure 20,000 more tents from suppliers in Pakistan.

The World Food Programme said that food, drinking water, tents and medical services are the most urgent needs and that the threat of waterborne diseases was high in all affected areas.

Some 28,000 people have been rescued by about 30 helicopters and 170 boats, it said.

UNICEF reported providing drinking water through tankers to 700,000 people in Kohat, Charsadda, Lower Dir, Peshawar and Batkhela.

Forecasters envision more rain this week, with up to 3 inches (75 mm) of rainfall accumulating in some areas through Wednesday, CNN International meteorologist Jennifer Delgado said.

Monsoonal rain in the region typically lasts through mid-September, she said.

"That could spell a lot of problems for parts of Pakistan," she said.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department Monday forecast widespread rain in the next four days in Sindh, Punjab, Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, northeast Balochistan and Islamabad.

Areas along the Indus River will be badly affected due to extremely high flood conditions, the Pakistan Meteorological Department has said.

In the hardest-hit province, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, authorities estimate that 800 people have died and more than 100 are missing, the World Health Organization said.

About 15,000 families in the province need emergency assistance, such as food, clean water, shelter and medical services, the report said.

Some areas can be reached only by air, but government officials have said they have just 36 helicopters.

Rushing water also has washed away thousands of acres of crops, government buildings, businesses, schools, bridges and homes, officials said.

Many governments and non-profit organizations, including the United States, the United Nations and the European Commission, have pledged aid.

President Asif Ali Zardari has said all available resources would be used to help those stranded by the water, the state-run news agency reported.

Health staff and supplies were being shipped by mules, boats and helicopters, according to the aid agency Save the Children, which was planning to begin distributing 800 shelter kits on Monday.

But despite the massive relief effort, the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres called the flooding the worst the country has seen in 80 years.

"The devastation by the floods is enormous, and some towns have been completely washed away," said Josep Prior Tio, the organization's field coordinator. "What used to be small streams are now highways of fast-flowing water that are destroying everything in their way. Many people remain trapped. Some have taken refuge at the top of hills. Others are stuck on islands that have been formed as a result of the floods."

Source: CNN

Posted by Jessie James