Image Gallery | Flooding challenges life in Pakistan

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Estimates of the number of people affected by severe flooding in
Pakistan that began in late July range from 16 million to 20 million.
Catholic Relief Services reports that the floods in northern Pakistan
were sudden and violent. The water cut 100-foot-wide and 40-foot-high
gashes out of mountainsides. Water delivery systems, roads, bridges,
people’s land and more were destroyed by the sudden force of the water.
Entire communities are displaced in the south, but their land, although
damaged, will be there after the floodwaters go down. Catholic Relief
Services is beginning to lay out pathways and build culverts to improve
market access, as well as constructing retaining walls to limit
landslides. CRS is distributing water purification tablets and also
talking to people about boiling water if tablets run out. Aid workers
caution that many have yet to receive help, and new threats such as
outbreaks of diseases are beginning to appear.

Photos by Reuters via Catholic News Service.