Water levels are falling in some parts of flood-hit Pakistan, enabling rescuers to reach areas cut off for days, but more bad weather is on the way, officials said on Monday.
Pakistan has been battered by early rainy-season storms and flooding, while severe weather has also affected Afghanistan and India, where about 65 people were killed in weekend rain. More than 650 people have been killed across the region in the past 10 days.
Hardest hit has been southern Pakistan. A cyclone last week brought torrential rain and severe flooding to large tracts of mostly flat, usually desert-like, Baluchistan province.
The cyclone and floods, the worst in Baluchistan since records began nearly a century ago, have affected up to two million people and killed 119 people. About 250 000 people are homeless and 204 people are missing, 29 of them fishermen, a disaster-management official said.
The cyclone hit three days after ferocious wind and rain killed about 230 people in the southern city of Karachi.
The weather was clear on Monday and rescuers were taking advantage to push into areas cut off for nearly a week, relief officials said. ”The water level is definitely going down … we’re slowly reaching even the worst-hit areas,” deputy provincial relief commissioner Ali Gul Kurd said.
But many road links are still severed, officials said.
President Pervez Musharraf, who has yet to visit the affected area, chaired a meeting of top civilian and military officials who called for relief efforts to be expedited. The military is helping organise rescue and relief efforts with six C-130 cargo aircraft and more than two dozen helicopters carrying out search-and-rescue and relief operations.
Camps for the homeless, who have been crowding into schools, are being set up, but Kurd said he had no tents and had appealed for supplies. The government has not asked for international help.
Heavy rain due
The flooding, the worst in Pakistan since 1992, is the second disaster to strike the country in 20 months. An earthquake hit northern mountains in October 2005, killing 73 000.
Kurd said snakes and gastro-intestinal problems are also major problems. Flooding has also hit the Khyber Pass area, killing about 50 people.
Meteorologists said southern parts of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, and Baluchistan’s coastal belt are in for more bad weather approaching from western India.
In India, about 240 people have been killed in storms and floods over the past 10 days. In the western state of Maharashtra, heavy rain killed at least 52 over the weekend.
In Mumbai, India’s financial hub, rain had eased after shutting down most of the city on Saturday and killing more than 10. Twelve people were killed in the neighbouring state of Gujarat and more than 2 500 people evacuated from low areas.
Rescuers in Gujarat were struggling to reach 22 children stranded on a school bus in rushing water on a flooded road.
In Afghanistan, Nato peacekeepers have been helping rescue efforts after floods killed more than 40 people, destroyed roads and damaged homes and irrigation works. The seasonal rain is vital for the region’s agriculture and economy. It also brings welcome relief after many hot, dry months, but every year the rains kill hundreds of people. — Reuters
Additional reporting by Kamran Haider in Islamabad, Krittivas Mukherjee in Mumbai and Rupam Jain Nair in Ahmedabad