Pakistani police fired tear gas on Friday to break up a protest by angry cyclone survivors as rescuers struggled to reach communities cut off by floods affecting 900 000 people. Meanwhile, in India, tens of thousands of people fled an approaching storm.
The onset of the rainy season has brought severe weather to much of South Asia, killing more than 500 people in storms and floods in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan over the past week.
Hardest hit has been Pakistan. A cyclone struck the country’s south-west Baluchistan province on Tuesday, three days after a storm battered the nation’s biggest city, Karachi, killing about 230 people.
Floods have inundated four districts and caused severe flooding in three others. They have washed away roads, bridges, railway lines and even severed a natural gas pipeline. The death toll from the cyclone and flooding has risen to about 60.
In the town of Turbat near the Iranian border, police fired tear gas to break up a protest by survivors who ransacked a provincial government office and the office of a pro-government party, said a resident who witnessed the disturbance.
”The people are complaining that they’re not getting relief assistance,” said the resident, Qambar Baloch.
Cut off
Provincial relief commissioner Khuda Bakhsh Baluch said the main problem he faced was getting help to the tens of thousands of people cut off by floods. ”It rained throughout the province last night, but this is the normal monsoon. The worry now is not rain. The main problem is communication,” he said.
A fleet of aircraft, including more than a dozen military helicopters and several C-130 cargo aircraft, was called in, but the rain thwarted much flying.
”We’re considering flying C-130s to areas which have airports. We’ll dump relief goods and from there they’ll be distributed, but many areas don’t have airports,” Baluch said.
Survivors plucked off roofs and high ground have been arriving in towns.
”Our whole neighbourhood is flooded. We took refuge on high ground then a helicopter got us,” farmer Atta Mohammad said soon after arriving in Sibi town. ”We’ve lost everything. Our houses are under water; we’ve got nothing to eat.”
Across the border in Afghanistan, heavy rain caused widespread flooding that has killed more than 40 people, destroyed roads and damaged homes and irrigation works.
In India, tens of thousands of people on the east coast were clearing out of the path of a storm approaching across the Bay of Bengal, officials said.
”The storm is very close to Puri town on the Orissa coast and is likely to cross over the mainland any time,” said LV Prasad Rao, director of a cyclone warning centre.
About 160 people have been killed in India in storms and floods over the past week. — Reuters