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MINGORA, Pakistan –When the floods hit the Swat Valley four weeks ago, nearly every bridge was wiped out and miles of mountainside roads crumbled into the raging water.
Hundreds of thousands of people have now been cut off from the rest of the country, but they are still crossing the rivers, slowly and sometimes dangerously.
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In the town of Mingora, we found a booming raft business. The boats are crudely strung together with planks of wood and inflatable tubes. They don’t look like they could pass a safety test in a swimming pool, let alone crossing the fast-moving Swat River.
But about 1,000 people a day still wait in line, pay 20 rupees (about 40 cents) and stack everything they can on board until the planks buckle and the rafts sink low in the water.
The Pakistani military is overseeing the crossing. They picked the location because they said it was the shortest and calmest crossing. But looking out across the river “short and calm” are not the first adjectives to come to mind.
EPA/RASHID IQBAL
Flood victims use a cable car on a river as they transport food to their camps in Matta, a region of Swat Valley in northern Pakistan on Aug. 11.
When a boat is launched, the current pushes hard while two men with oars in the back furiously paddle to try to get to the other side. On the day we were there watching from the banks of the river, everyone made it. But peach farmer Sulman Ali said he has seen accidents.
“I am scared every time I step on board,” he said. But Ali, like many others here, has no choice. The flood destroyed most of his peaches, and those that remain will rot if he doesn’t pick them now and get them to town. The money he makes from the fruit is supposed to support his family for the rest of the year.
Zip line across
Further up river, there is similar necessity to cross, but the water churns into dangerous rapids. Boats won’t make it, so the Pakistani military has set up a zip line.
Three rickety carts are set up to get manually pulled across the river along a cable. In one direction they move quickly, sliding down a decline, but coming back uphill it’s slow and jerky. At times the carts linger uncomfortably above the water.
Nearly everyone that used the zip line to cross the river had a similar story: their villages had been wiped away, there was not enough food or medicine and very little help had arrived.
“Our village was destroyed and the children are getting sick,” one woman said just after she crossed via the zip line. “I have to go to my nephew’s funeral on this side of the river. He died from diarrhea two days ago.”
By Stephanie Gosk, NBC News
People in Swat Valley have been forced to walk because the roads have been swept away.
SLIDESHOW: Floods ravage Pakistan
Long road ahead
Unfortunately, the people in Swat have become painfully familiar with adversity.
Several years ago the Pakistani Taliban grew in prominence and eventually controlled the entire region. In Mingora, the largest city in Swat Valley, those who opposed the Taliban’s radical
Islamic ideology were often killed. Their lifeless bodies were left hanging in the center of town with a note: anyone that removes this body will end up here as well.
A year and a half ago the Pakistani military launched an offensive to drive out the Taliban. It was successful, but Swat suffered extensive damage as a result of the military offensive and thousands fled to escape the fighting.
People had only just begun to return to the valley and rebuild when the floods hit. Now, by even the most optimistic estimates, it will take years and billions of dollars to rebuild their lives.
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Keep and eye out for you know who, if the trails are messed up good time to do some recon.
Where is the need to be connected with the rest of the Pakistan? Pakistan is supposed to be a nuclear power and have a strong army and biggest liability on earth, its intelligence. Can't they work better during these critical times?
Are these people still busy helping Islamic militants like Taliban, al-Qaeda and others fighting Nato forces in Afghanistan?
Now these people should take marches "Death to Amerika", "Death to infidels" and so on! If they can't do these, they should kill each other. After all, it is Ramadan time! Allah is furious with them!
Jonathan, the flash foods in Iowa and Mississippi today, is ALLAH furious with them too? Pakistanis are helping each other out and do not need your help or your $. Your $ is only requested by your own placed puppet governments in Pakistan & Afghanistan.
Pakistani people totally dislike Taliban but wait ask your CIA first as they're the father's of this cancer.
and America still has not completely recovered from Katrina do not make this about religion! It is about human life.
Isn't it strange that we can mobilize our Military to Bomb anywhere in the world in a matter of hours,but we can't help with Floods and Earthquakes.
cynic: The military does a lot of humanitarian aid, and helps with disasters. Do you remember the Tsunami a few years back, and other more recent disasters that U.S. Military personnel were dispatched to help in recovery and supply delivery?
Joe, your comment is quite accurate and useful, thanks. US army is helping in flood reliefs efforts in Pakistan just like in the past. Way to go US Army.
Jonathan: I do'nt know what to say. Its the likes of you who dominate the people framing american foriegn policy. In our land they say they were born through the wrong orifice.
Just fewer ignorant, uneducated terrorists coming to America to kill us . . . send condoms not food!
John, why don't you first pass those condoms to your teenagers? lots of teenage pregnancies, right? Oh wait, got a better idea. Pass those to your priests who make love to babies in churches and produce nothing but more gay people like yourself.
Jamshed: Many like you are born wrong from all angles from top to toe. That is why you people become liabilities where ever you are! You people can’t contribute anywhere except breaking a society, nation and world to pieces!
Pakistan’s own fabulously rich and rich sharks of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and other ME nations are not contributing even during Ramadan time. You are going around infidels with begging bowls. You people only how to hate and kill on the basis of religion. Have some shame even while begging/posting! Your own Allah is furious with the sinners of Pakistan and so he has given this punishment through worst floods ever
Jamshed: Many like you are born wrong from all angles from top to toe. That is why you people become liabilities where ever you are! You people can’t contribute anywhere except breaking a society, nation and world to pieces!
Pakistan’s own fabulously rich and rich sharks of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and other ME nations are not contributing even during Ramadan time. You are going around infidels with begging bowls. You people only how to hate and kill on the basis of religion. Have some shame even while begging/posting! Your own Allah is furious with the sinners of Pakistan and so he has given this punishment through worst floods ever!
Jonathan, a virtual slap session was just initiated for you, enjoy it u rat face.
Muslim countries have already spent over $1 billion in Pakistan aid. They don't make it all political like people of your type.
On your born wrong comment, I bet you have signed up for some reality show by now to find out your real father? isn't that what you guys do anyways in your teenage years. Always try to figure out who the real father is?
John Congress wrote:
Looks like the Bush scare tactics are still working. You're more likely to be killed slipping in your bathtub than by someone from Pakistan.
I am a strong supporter of Christian causes (such as rebuilding St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church which was crushed by the World Trade Center on 9/11, and there is no suggestion of an Orthodox cultural center to be built... nor money for rebuilding from the 9/11 funds, even though it had been promised; too much attention has been diverted towards the mosque near ground zero instead of the church that was at ground zero). Yet, this flooding is a separate thing. I cry for it, just as I still cry thinking about all the cultural resources that have been lost in New Orleans and vicinity since 2005. The extremists may become stronger in Pakistan; it had a non-Saudi culture before, but if that culture is wiped all the colorful local culture may disappear. Some of the most delightful foods and clothing came from Pakistan before. I know that most people don't put rose-water in their milk or soda in the summer (it cools you down), but it is delicious, and came from Pakistan. It is much easier to send a Christian mission to a country that is not devastated this way. At the very least, if you feel that some of those people did wrong in the past, please hate the sin, and have hope that the sinner may change. If the barbarians that took over Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire had been treated badly, they would have never converted to Christianity. Think of St. Martin who divided his cloak to help a poor person, because he said that the Roman Empire (not just Christians) should take care of poor people, and had had higher standards. Think of what "civilization" means.
Lets save the money for something important.
Certainly not to these looters, haters and killers!
U.S.A. needs billions to fix U.S. Dams and Bridges not in Pakistan we have hundreds needing repair. Wake up people they do not pay taxes. Stop building up foreign nations so they can war with our grand children like Iraq and Iran. Take care of our country stop D.C. from giving away our tax dollars to tyrants.
i would love to stop them also, but how?
you vote out one idiot only to get another one.
@RickyBobby
I guess you forgot about those 10 medical volunteers who were killed by the Taliban not too long ago..?? I'll tell you what.... why don't "YOU" go and contribute your services and see how well you'll be received once your there..?? People like you make me sick !!!
Wouldent it be nice to get rid of all muslins
David Hammond: You are two percent right! Hope our wishes come true soon!
David Hammond: You are two percent right! Hope our wishes come true soon!
The threat of disease epidemic in Pakistan is what it is all about right now, not escaping flood waters which are receding and now cleaning up is a military and civil defence pre- eminent activity. So does the civil defense or military of Pakistan need the US Aid? Or will the US Aid be contributing to the violent gangster Taliban? I need you to look at it from the perspective of getting the sick Pakistani to the aid and not moving the aid all around Pakistan. It is better to move people because they will need resupply of help for a long time. Try to be helpful in a way that works in the situation at hand and where the distribution of aid can be regulated so it will not benefit the bummer negative Taliban guys. Also helping the civil defense of Pakistan seems to make sense since they will be doing lots of heavy lifting with big equipment and rebuilding roads and bridges real fast. People have lost everything and so be it we can't allow them to live where it will not be possible to live nor can we stop aid from giving them life. So provide transportation to where aid can be most effectively applied to the most people and tell everyone that that is what is going to happen and that that is the way it will be until they can begin to rebuild a life without the aid.
Just have mercy on these poor people. Islam is all the religion they have ever know or had the opportunity to know. I think they would laugh now if someone told them God loves them, but he does, and his hands and his feet are his church on earth. Think what it would be like if it were your children.