Church aid workers hampered in reaching Pakistani flood victims

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A man carried his belongings through receding flood waters in Nowshera, Pakistan, Aug. 2. Floods caused by a week of heavy rain in northwestern Pakistan had left more than 1,200 people dead. Aid workers were scrambling to help those desperate for food and shelter.

BANGALORE, India — Church aid workers in Pakistan were gradually reaching hundreds of thousands of people displaced and rendered homeless by the rain and floods that had claimed more than 1,200 lives in Pakistan's mountainous northwestern region.

"The biggest challenge before us is how to (get) relief to the needy. Bridges have collapsed and roads have been washed out," Carolyn Fanelli, Catholic Relief Services' acting country representative in Pakistan, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview Aug. 2.