PANGRIO Desperate to save his grandmother from floodwaters swamping interior Sindh, Ali Ahmed and three other relatives stuck her in a large metal cooking pot and pulled her to safety through neck-high water. The men swam for several hours through driving rain, unable to rest because the water was too deep. It was the most spine-chilling experience of my life, and I will never forget it, said Ahmed, surrounded by a couple dozen white tents set up outside Pangrio town on the only patch of dry ground for miles around. The rescuers finally reached a road and transported Rasti Bibi to a hospital in Pangrio, where she was treated for acute diarrhoea, said Ahmed. The town, like much of southern Sindh, is under water. Authorities are unsure how many people are still stranded by floods that first hit Pakistan in August following unusually heavy monsoon rains and have affected at least 5.4 million people. In Sindh alone, the floods have killed over 220 people, damaged or destroyed some 665,000 homes and displaced more than 1.8 million people, according to the United Nations. Bibis family ferried her to safety about three weeks ago, but the other 300 members of their village, Suleman Hamadani, were only saved a few days ago by the military, said Ahmed. The air force commandos who made up the rescue team said they happened upon the villagers as they were searching the area by boat. Earlier, we had an impression that all have been evacuated, but we realised during our two-day operation that many villagers still need to be rescued, said one of the commandos, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media. This area is far-flung and also beyond the capacity of the civilian rescue workers. While some of the districts have been flooded twice, many of the hardest-hit towns and villages, such as Pangrio and Suleman Hamadani, were unaffected in 2010. Bibi, the elderly grandmother who relatives estimate is over 100 years old, lay stretched out on the rough ground outside her tent, weakly raising bony hands to swat flies away from her wrinkled face. Her family doesnt know what will happen to them since their village was entirely flooded. We lost everything, and our children are sick, said Bibis grandson, Ahmed.