Army troops in life jackets are using motor boats to help feed and rescue people marooned by flash floods that have inundated dozens of villages in northwestern Pakistan, officials said Sunday. Thousands of people have been forced to take shelter on higher ground, and the waters have washed away acres of maize and tobacco fields, said Ghulam Jilani, a relief official in Peshawar. Fresh rains in neighboring Afghanistan are swelling the Kabul River and "we are expecting more flooding," said Abdul Wali Yousafzai, an official at the flood warning center in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier province. The Kabul River and its tributary the Swat have been flooded since around mid-June, Yousafzai was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. Flash floods washed away two homes, several rice paddies and maize fields on Sunday in Swat, a northwestern district where the Swat River originates in snow-covered mountains, Yousafzai said. No one was reported hurt. A flood alert was issued Sunday in the districts of Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera in the North West Frontier Province, Yousafzai said. Authorities have urged people in villages near the banks of two swollen rivers to move to safer ground.
