Aid workers warn of malaria and diseases spreading fast in flood-hit Pakistan

ITV News Central Reporter Lewis Warner has the latest from the ground in Pakistan

For miles and miles, makeshift tarpaulin sheets do their best to offer protection from the sun, to those living on the side of the road. 

Some are luckier than others, they have actual tents to call home. But this new life is nothing compared to what they are used to. 

For the last four months, around 33 million people in Pakistan have been affected in some way by flooding. More than 1,500 people have died. 

At its peak, the area underwater covered one-third of the country, the same size as the entire United Kingdom. 

'A man dived into a ditch and found my lifeless son's body'

Pervaiz Hussain, who's 18-years-old, went missing during heavy monsoon rain three weeks ago.

His father, Marco Hussain, who was breaking down in tears, said: "A local man came running and dived into the ditch to look for my son."

"He recovered his lifeless body and we tried to resuscitate him but sadly he had already died. I am overcome by grief."

Some water has receded but the threat posing a real problem now is water-born diseases.

A team of Midlands aid workers from the charity Muslim Hands are trying to alleviate the pain by providing food, water, and medicine.

Yasrab Shah, who is from Nottingham and the Director of Fundraising for Muslim Hands, said the charity can feel the strain of families.

Speaking to ITV News Central, he said: "We have the infrastructure on the ground in all four provinces of Pakistan.

"But we're completely limited by the general public's donations and generosity and we're massively humbled at a time of economic crisis within the UK."

"Our families are feeling the strain but when you come out here, it really puts things into perspective when they've literally lost everything."

"There is no home, there's no bedding, there's nothing for that for their families, and they're just living in these makeshift tents with next to nothing."

The initial threat posed by the water is obvious.

Muslim Hands says this is now a protracted emergency. Its efforts are still in the emergency relief stage, rather than having progressed to rebuilding and rehabilitation.

At a pop-up medical centre, housed in what should normally be a secondary school, Pakistan’s poorest come for aid.

The queues are long, even though, other than giving prescriptions there is very little doctors can do.

250 men, women and children are seen daily, the most common illnesses and diseases including Malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition. 

Zarsa Mai brought her son to the centre because she doesn't have the food to feed him.

She said: "He's really sick because he's been underfed. I don't have enough food to feed both my children properly. He is now the weak one now."

The fields in Sindh Province, normally grow around one third of the country’s food supply and it has been among the hardest hit by the rains.

It's received six times it’s 30-year average rainfall this monsoon season, destroying half of its crop.

It will take many months for the water to recede fully. Even then what state this usual fertile ground will be in is unclear.  

Families that have farmed the land for generations are now left with no home and no income - and only the hands of others to help them survive.