Sutlej flooding continues in Punjab as India releases more water

BAHAWALPUR: Sutlej River has been in high flood with 1,40,000 cusecs flow submerging several areas here, ARY News reported on Monday.

The floodwater has entered in Moza Bhanda, Subhanabad and other settlements and submerged dozens of houses. Over four feet water standing in the vicinity. People stranded at rooftops of their homes at several places.

India released water into Sutlej River yesterday as hundreds of homes and roads and embankments at several places washed away in the floodwater in Pakistan.

The river flooding has caused devastation especially in Bahawalnagar, Hasilpur, Vehari and Luddan, Arifwala and Chishtian where roads are cobmpletely submerged, leaving hundreds of villages and towns cut off from surrounding areas.

Panic also gripped Bahawalpur as a number of protective dykes could not withstand the strong Sutlej water currents adjacent to the town.

Flooding has wreaked havoc in the region as thousands of acres farmland has drowned and crops destroyed in Kasur, Bahawalnagar, Okara, Pakpattan, Sahiwal and Vehari districts.

The area has become a mammoth lake with water everywhere to the limits of the visible landscape and dozens of settlements submerged.

The emergency services recently said that around 2,50,000 people have been evacuated from flooded villages in Punjab.

The monsoon rains had prompted authorities in India to release excess reservoir water into the Sutlej River, causing flooding downstream on the Pakistani side of the border.