Election candidate caught up in Pakistan flooding plight

Bexhill's Labour candidate at the 2010 General Election James Royston dodged landslides and waded rivers to escape the monsoon flooding which killed at least 1,400 people this week.

But the local man who went The Grove school and pulled in 6,524 votes to finish third in May was fobbed off by the embassy, who were not even interested in registering his name, he says.

"Our drivers said the only chance to get out of the area was to travel to Gilgit by jeep, which we did - along some of the most dangerous roads I have ever seen," said James. "The rivers were massively swollen, roads had been reduced to barely the width of our jeep, and on one occasion rocks rained down around us as we rushed along the road.

"Having been caught twice in rivers when trying to cross, we eventually had to wade across before being collected by drivers from Gilgit.

"The worst site was where our second jeep got stuck, where a bridge had been washed away that day, and tragically, several Chinese workers had drowned in their tents. Also we found out at the end of one day that a jeep had been washed off the top of one bridge we crossed, killing five women."

James and a group of six friends flew to Skardu, north