A local BBC reporter in Turbat, Tariq Masood, was among the first people to notice that the flood was upon them last Tuesday evening.

There have been angry scenes in Turbat

"It was the waning sound of the river that warned us," he says.

An old man in the village of Ginna, on the right bank of the river where Mr Masood was visiting some friends, cocked his ears when the thud and rumble of the water flowing through the rocky sands of the riverbed gradually faded away, making the sound of the rain more audible.

"The silence was followed by a stale, almost rotten smell of damp earth. The old man said, 'check out the river, there is something wrong'. But before we could go to the river, it came to us," he says.

Ginna is one of 43 villages in the area that were hit by the floods that evening.

It took some time for the people in Turbat city centre to realise what had happened to the western villages on both banks of the river.

Not a single official was in the office, they were avoiding us because they couldn't face the reality Sardar Rafique Ahmad, Koshkalat council head Despair in Balochistan

Some came to know in the night when they received distress calls from friends and relatives caught up in the disaster. Others only knew in the morning, after having slept peacefully through the rainy night that broke the hot spell in this oasis town of the vast Mekran desert.

But the local administration was certainly not the last to know.

"A large group of people from Turbat centre was trying to get to Koshkalat village which had been flooded, but a small bridge on the road had been washed away and the waters were gushing through, blocking the road," says Anwar Ali, a Turbat resident.

"We saw two police trucks, and the vehicle of the head of the district government, parked near the broken bridge. They waited for a while, then they turned and drove away," he says.

But others persevered.

"We waited and some time after 0200 most of us were able to wade through the waters and make it to the road on the other side."

'No will'

That was the first and the last time that the head of the city government, Abdur Rauf Rind, was seen in the area.

[The government] has failed to show the skills to manage the crisis Maula Bukhsh Dashti, Ex-Turbat government head

On two consecutive days after the floods, the village councillors of Koshkalat and adjoining villages repeatedly visited the offices of the district officials, trying to get them to send a bulldozer to fix a couple of breaches in the road.

"Not a single official was in the office, they were avoiding us because they couldn't face the reality," says Sardar Rafique Ahmad, head of the Kushkalat local council.

Pakistani government officials deny the authorities are to blame for relief being slow to get through - and say the relatively low number of deaths proves this.

Despite repeated attempts, the BBC was unable to contact local officials to put villagers' criticisms to them. Mr Rind, the head of Turbat's city government, could not be reached on any of his four telephones.

A former head of the city government, Maula Bukhsh Dashti, says authorities in Turbat can arrange more than a dozen bulldozers from various government departments and a construction company which is building the road linking Turbat with a dam some 45km (30 miles) to the west.

The government can also arrange at least five large water tankers from various departments, he says.

"The government has the resources, but it does not have the will. It has failed to show the skills to manage the crisis," he says.

In Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province in which Turbat is also located, the provincial government was equally slow in moving.

"Although we had received information of the flood within four hours, the government could not come up with a rescue and relief plan for the next three days," says Nizamuddin, a lawyer from Turbat who is based in Quetta.

PM's visit

Nizamuddin was part of a delegation that met Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf to register their complaint about the delay in delivering relief.

Possessions have been swept away

"The chief minister said the relief operation will have to wait until the weather in Turbat clears," he says.

But on that very day the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had resumed operations to Turbat and a PIA aircraft had landed there three hours before that meeting.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz waited for six days before visiting Turbat, and when he did, he avoided going into the affected areas and meeting the people.

On the contrary, his visit created more problems for the people.

The Turbat airport was closed to the public from an hour before his arrival around midday time on Sunday, until about 1600 when he departed.

About 50 passengers who were booked on an afternoon flight to Karachi, and their friends and relatives who came to see them off, were stranded outside the airport for almost four hours, battling with a sizzling sun.

Police guarding the gates had no information for passengers, such as when the gates would be opened, or when their flight - number PK-596 - would depart.

At least four of these passengers were going to Karachi for medical reasons. Among them, two passengers were seriously ill and were being carried on stretchers.

At least one sick woman had come from as far away as Mand on the Iranian border, 120km to the west of Turbat. Her relatives say they had to carry her across riverbeds at two points on the road where the floods have washed away the bridges.