Helicopters were launched on Thursday to airdrop urgent relief aid to some of the more than 400 000 people battered by monsoon-spawned flooding in coastal areas of Pakistan, officials said.
Many of the stricken were living in higher open areas or atop the roofs of buildings to escape the floodwaters that inundated large areas of Baluchistan province in wake of Cyclone Yemyin, said Tariq Ayub, the provincial home secretary.
The army, he said, had taken over the relief operations, using 14 helicopters to reach stranded villagers.
Ayub, who also heads the main relief centre, estimated that about 100 000 houses had been destroyed or damaged. More than 400 000 have been affected by the floods, caused by heavy rains and spill-overs from rivers and dams.
The cyclone struck the coastline of Baluchistan on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people, said Raziq Bugti, spokesperson for the provincial government. Others were believed lost in the Arabian Sea, but no estimates were available.
Navy warships and helicopters have rescued at least 125 crew from floundering craft, the navy and Maritime Security Agency said.
Aircraft and speedboats were also in demand to help hundreds of people on five isolated islands lying about 150km south-east of Karachi, said Sami Memon, president of the Fisherfolk Forum, a fishermen’s welfare body.
”Our house has been washed away. We have nothing left. We are going to live with our relatives 80km away,” said Abdul Qadir, waiting on Wednesday with his wife and two children for transport along Baluchistan’s coastal highway. Other families also waited nearby.
Sections of the highway, as well as bridges were washed away, making it hard for homeless people to move and for relief supplies to be delivered.
In Larkha, a cluster of villages about 170km west of Karachi, local residents tried to make temporary repairs to all three severed roads into the area, complaining that no outside assistance had yet arrived.
Villagers said there was no electricity or food and that water sources had been polluted by the floodwaters, many surging from the Pirgoth River. Many domestic animals, they said, had died and banana orchards were destroyed.
”We have suffered total loss. We are going to have to burn all our banana fields,” said farmer Noorul Haq.
Inland in the mountainous Bolan district, floodwater burst three small dams, inundating 15 villages and forcing thousands of residents to camp out in the open, local government official Aslam Jamali said.
”The water is demolishing their homes, but we had already evacuated them,” he said.
The army said it had evacuated 4 500 people stranded at various points along the coast.
Located to the east on the same Arabian Sea coastline, Karachi suffered torrential rains and thunderstorms, which killed at least 228 people on Saturday. City authorities continued to grapple with electricity shortages caused by power lines that were snapped by falling trees, pylons and billboards. — Sapa-AP