[DAWN] The havoc wreaked by flash floods in Chitral took another serious turn when the water supply system collapsed on Wednesday.There was no drinking water on the day Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak visited the town to express sympathy with and support the people affected by the flood which has destroyed infrastructures and paralysed the entire area.
The crisis erupted after the Golen Gol water supply project completed only a year ago at a cost of Rs450 million by the public health engineering department developed a technical fault.
But the department’s secretary and superintending engineer Mujtaba Khan who have set up a camp in Chitral had surprisingly no knowledge about the breakdown of the water system.
The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) is yet to prepare a report on the damage caused to roads, drinking water supply schemes, irrigation channels and hydropower stations. A PDMA official only said the report was being finalised.