A charitable group of St Albans residents gathered in a primary school hall this afternoon to pack boxes for those hit by the Pakistani floods.

About 30 people from the area gathered at Fleetville Infant School, in Royal Road, to send boxes of essentials to those hit by the devastation the downpours have caused.

Items in the boxes included water, biscuits, soap, rehydration salts and, more poignantly, blankets to cover the dead.

Nearly 300 boxes were packed and will be flown out to the disaster zones free of charge through Pakistan International Airlines next week.

The aid delivery is organised through the Ummah Welfare Trust, and St Albans resident Amina Hatia said every one of the volunteers was desperate to help those in need.

She said: “We wanted to do something with our hands to help. It puts you in touch with the crisis a little more than giving money does. Many, but not all of us here, are Muslims and so we are fasting for Ramadan – making us more appreciative of their need for food.”

The group came together after a fundraiser, organised two weeks previously, in which about three vans' worth of clothes was packed off to Pakistan.

Items for today's collection were paid for by the residents and, in some cases, they were donated free of charge by local businesses.

Amina added: “These are essential items for people who have not made it to the relief camps. These are the people on the news stuck on a roof and these boxes will keep them alive for for or five days. If we make a difference to just one life it will have been worth it.”