Pakistan rescuers battle in flood aftermath
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The US government has been dropping food parcels by air
Rescuers in Pakistan are struggling to reach 27,000 people still stranded by the worst floods in 80 years.
At least 1,100 people have died and, with entire communities devastated, it is now estimated that more than 1.5 million people desperately need help.
There are fears diarrhoea and cholera will spread among the homeless. Food and drinking water are in short supply.
The UN, China and US have already pledged aid for the rescue effort.
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Floodwaters receded in some areas as weather conditions improved on Monday, but more rain is now forecast.
Part of the main north-south motorway into the region was reopened on Sunday, before reportedly closing again. The brief opening allowed some aid supplies into the flooded area while also permitting people to flee.
Officials in Islamabad fear that once access to affected areas improves, the full picture will show that the situation is much worse than is so far known, says the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in the capital.
AnalysisContinue reading the main story
Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Islamabad
The rain may have stopped for the time being, but huge swathes of north-west Pakistan remain submerged.
Some 1.5 million people are estimated to have been affected; a lot of them are now stranded, and still waiting for help.
Many have lost all of their belongings and don't have the means of getting food.
Clean water supplies have been contaminated by the floods, and that has raised serious concerns about the spread of disease.
The Pakistani army says it has committed around 30,000 troops to the relief effort, but winching individuals to safety is a slow process, and time, right now, is crucial for the survival of so many.
The information minister of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa (formerly North West Frontier Province) - one of the worst-hit provinces - said 1.5 million people had been affected by the floods and landslides.
"We are receiving information about the loss of life and property caused by the floods all over the province," Mian Iftikhar Hussain told the AFP news agency.
The province's disaster management authority earlier said an aerial survey showed dozens of villages had been simply washed away.
Mr Hussain said rescue teams were trying to reach the 27,000 people stranded by the floods in the province, including 1,500 tourists in the Swat district, the scene of a major military offensive against the Taliban last year.
"We are also getting confirmation of reports about an outbreak of cholera in some areas of Swat," he added.
The government's response to the disaster drew a protest of several hundred people in the north-western city of Peshawar, where homeless survivors crammed into temporary shelters overnight.
"The government is not helping us," said 53-year-old labourer Ejaz Khan, whose house on the city's outskirts was swept away by the floods.
"The school building where I sheltered is packed with people, with no adequate arrangement for food and medicine," he told AFP news agency.
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“Start Quote
There is a desperate need for temporary shelter, clean drinking water and toilets to avert a public health catastrophe”End Quote Jane Cocking Oxfam
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Shariyar Khan Bangash, the regional programme manager for the aid organisation World Vision, based in Peshawar, said survivors of the worst-affected areas were pleading for clean drinking water to be delivered.
"These people were saying: 'We don't need food at this time but we need drinking water.' All the wells which are providing water for them are full of mud and you cannot use those wells," he told the BBC.
"Already among the children the diarrhoea has been started already and cholera. That's the main risk at this time. Food shortages are already there."
The humanitarian director of Oxfam, Jane Cocking, said the extent of this crisis was only slowly emerging.
"The more villages that are reached the grimmer the picture becomes," she said as the organisation launched an appeal for aid.
"There is a desperate need for temporary shelter, clean drinking water and toilets to avert a public health catastrophe. People also need medical care and basic food items."
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The BBC's Lyse Doucet meets people sleeping rough
The UN's Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, said he was "deeply saddened by the significant loss of lives, livelihoods and infrastructure in Pakistan", stressed that the UN would help meet the humanitarian needs of those affected and offered an extra $10m (£6.5m) in aid for the relief effort.
The Pakistani military says it has committed 30,000 troops and dozens of helicopters to the relief effort, but winching individuals to safety is a slow process and time right now is crucial for the survival of so many, our correspondent says.
Earlier, the US promised the government $10m in aid. It also provided about 50,000 meals, four rescue boats and two water-filtration units.
The US embassy in Islamabad said Washington would also be providing 12 temporary bridges to replace some of those destroyed by the floods.
As well as the more 1,000 deaths in Pakistan, at least 60 people have died across the border in Afghanistan, where floods have affected four provinces.
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