Forty-year-old Syed Muhammad, a resident of the Bishnoi area in Buner district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, walks six kilometres daily to Pir Baba Bazaar, hoping to receive a remittance his brother sent from Malaysia, and returns without any success. Muhammad lost his parents, livestock, and household goods in the devastating August 15 floods. His brother transferred Rs100,000 to help him arrange temporary shelter, but due to the collapse of mobile networks, he has yet to access the money.
Pir Baba Bazaar — once home to more than 100 mobile shops offering phone calls, internet packages, and money transfer services — now has only five shops left. The rest were destroyed by the floods. Muhammad Zahir, a shopkeeper who lost his business, is temporarily working from a friend’s shop. Floods not only destroyed our homes but also devastated our businesses, he said.
Two weeks after the disaster, mobile networks, internet, and electricity remain unrestored, leaving survivors struggling to access financial support and relief.
Even journalists covering the disaster faced severe challenges. Aziz Buneri, a senior journalist from Peshawar, said it was nearly impossible for his newsroom to receive timely videos, photos, and reports from the flood-hit areas. To reach affected villages in Buner district, reporters had to walk six to eight kilometers on foot. After collecting information, they were forced to travel another 20 kilometers by car to reach Sawari Bazaar, the nearest location where mobile networks were functional, in order to file their reports.
The people were struggling to reach the authorities, and at the same time, the communication collapse made our work as journalists many times harder, Buneri explained.
For some, videos circulating online became a grim reminder of the unfolding tragedy. Javed, a 20-year-old from the Qadir Nagar area of Buner, was working as a labourer in Malaysia when he came across social media clips showing the devastation in his village. Unable to reach his family by phone despite repeated attempts, fear gripped him. He bought a ticket home without even informing his employer.
When he arrived, the young worker was confronted with the unimaginable: he had lost his parents, sister, and brother, along with his home, in the floods. The videos showed that my village was among the affected areas. I tried again and again to contact my family, but no one responded, Javed recalled. “In the end, I had no choice but to come — only to find that I had lost everything.”
Even two weeks after the floods, some areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remain completely cut off. Local residents said that neither government officials nor aid organisations have visited them, and their plight has gone largely unnoticed in the media.
Muhammad Islam, a resident of Barshamnal, shared that a self-built hydroelectric power plant supplying electricity to nearly 200 households was destroyed in the floods. With mobile and internet services down, villagers have no way to communicate with the outside world, while connecting roads and farmland have also damaged. The lack of internet means we cannot even reach out to government or non-government organisations for help, Islam remarked. He added that no relief activities have begun in his area and that residents feel trapped and abandoned.
Since August 15, at least 406 people have died and 245 have been injured in torrential rains and floods across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to Anwar Shahzar, the spokesperson for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA). He said nine districts were among the worst-hit: Buner, Swat, Shangla, Bajaur, Toraar, Mansehra, Swabi, Upper Dir, and Lower Dir.
The devastation has been extensive. Around 664 houses have been completely destroyed and 2,431 partially damaged, while 324 government buildings have also suffered damage. Some areas of Buner district remain inaccessible due to collapsed or badly damaged roads. Shahzar said the PDMA has taken steps to ensure relief reaches survivors and that a survey will soon be conducted with district administrations to assess the scale of destruction.
Collapse of Infrastructure
The collapse of critical infrastructure has deepened the crisis for flood survivors. Concerns about the restoration of mobile and internet services in flood-affected areas were raised with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) zonal office in Peshawar. Officials there redirected queries to the organisation’s headquarters, but despite repeated attempts, no formal response was provided.
On its official page, however, PTA shared a video statement noting that two mobile towers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been damaged by the floods and that 86% of sites were restored within 48 hours. The authority said staff had been deployed in affected areas ahead of the disaster, but admitted that difficult terrain and inaccessibility in mountainous regions had slowed restoration efforts.
The electricity network was similarly disrupted. According to Muhammad Usman, the spokesperson for the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO), floods damaged 91 grid stations across Buner, Swat, Shangla, and Dera Ismail Khan. Water seeped into transformers, while dozens of electricity poles were swept away. He said that repair work on 89 grid stations has been completed, but two remain cut off because washed-out roads have prevented equipment from reaching the sites.
Responding to complaints about ongoing power outages, Muhammad Usman, spokesperson for PESCO, said that electricity is now being supplied “normally” from all feeders in flood-affected areas, though minor disruptions may still occur. He acknowledged that parts of the electricity system in other flood-hit districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa could also face damage, but added that staff had been placed on alert and equipment pre-deployed to ensure quick repairs.
Compensation for survivors
According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), financial support is currently limited to Rs2 million cheques for the families of the deceased and Rs500,000 for the injured. Broader assistance for flood survivors will begin after a detailed survey, with payments to be transferred via mobile phones. However, with mobile networks still unreliable in many areas, even this relief mechanism faces serious hurdles.
In Swat district, the floods have devastated both homes and livelihoods. Sanaullah, the president of the Mobile Retailers Association, lost his house and shop in Mingora. He said more than 1,000 mobile shops and retailers are registered with the association, and that shops in Mingora market alone suffered losses worth millions of rupees.
Sanaullah recalled that when the provincial government sent an SMS about Rs12,000 Ramadan relief packages, desperate people began arriving at his shop to collect their payments. But with the internet and electricity down for three consecutive days, he could not process a single transaction.
He shared that he was cleaning my house, when his shop assistant called to say that the internet had been restored and that they could start paying the people. By evening, Sanaullah had to go to the shop himself because of the rush. “I was exhausted from working all day, but seeing people’s compulsion, I stayed until past midnight to ensure they got their money,” he remarked. He even urged fellow members of the retailers’ association via WhatsApp to extend their working hours to accommodate people in need.
The story has been edited by Yasal Munim who works as Senior Manager Programs at Media Matters for Democracy.
