From a hastily erected causeway protecting the city of Mehar, minarets of mosques and a gas station price board tower over a vast lake that has formed and is tens of kilometers wide.

Beyond that coastline in southern Sindh, hundreds of villages and farmlands have disappeared under water – devastated by floods that have affected nearly a third of Pakistan.

“No one knows where their village is anymore, the common man can no longer recognize his own home,” Ayaz Ali, whose village is submerged under nearly seven meters (23 feet) of water, told AFP.

The Sindh Government says more than 100,000 people have been displaced by this new body of water, brought on by record rain and the bursting of the Indus.

Across the country, about 33 million people have been affected by the floods, nearly two million homes and businesses have been destroyed, 7,000 kilometers (1.3 miles) of roads have been washed away and 256 bridges destroyed.

A bus conductor with a sharp memory, Ali acts as a navigator for the Navy, identifying each submerged village by pattern of utility poles and distinct lines of trees.

Navy volunteers navigate the waters on two lifeboats, carrying supplies donated by locals that are bringing people in need of medical attention back to the city.

With Ali’s help, they search for high ground where families can still find shelter and refuse to evacuate despite a desperate situation made worse by the scorching heat.

“Their houses and their belongings are so precious to them,” said one soldier, who asked not to be named, and looked at the surface of the water.

“When I got into the Navy, I never imagined doing that,” he added.

The engine shuts off, the boat slowly navigates through the treetops, and heads duck under power lines in front of a hamlet of crumbling houses surrounded by water.

This time dozens of people are waiting.

Many still refuse to leave their homes, fearing their livestock – whatever they have left – will be stolen or die, fearing a worse situation in the makeshift relief camps that have sprung up across the country.

“Our life and death is connected to our village, how can we leave it?” said Aseer Ali, who stood knee-deep in water and refused to allow his wife, who is eight months pregnant, to evacuate.

Some give in — men with fevers, infants with diarrhea, and an elderly woman silent in her agony — are among those helped onto the double-capacity boat on an arduous journey back to town.

Among them is a young mother who recently lost her newborn when water rose around her home last week.

She sways dizzily from the effects of heat stroke, her two-year-old child also suffers from the scorching midday sun – both have been repeatedly doused with water by a marine.

A new 10-kilometer mud dam has so far held back the flood from the town of Mehar, which has a population of hundreds of thousands.

But the city has swelled with displaced victims who have fled to makeshift camps in parking lots, schools and on highways over the past three weeks.

“More and more families are coming to the camp. They are in a terrible state,” said Muhammad Iqbal of the Alkhidmat Foundation – a Pakistan-based humanitarian organization that is the sole charity in the city’s largest camp, home to about 400 people.

“There is an immense need for drinking water and toilets,” he added, but they may have to wait longer – the government’s priority is to drain the flooded areas.

Pressure on swollen dams and reservoirs has increased, forcing engineers to make deliberate breaches to save densely populated areas at the expense of worsening the rural situation.

“They all did everything to protect the city but not the poor people in the rural areas,” said Umaida Solangi, a 30-year-old sitting with her children on a wooden bed in a city camp.