KARACHI, Pakistan

The death toll from raging floods in Pakistan's northeastern Punjab province has jumped to 30 over the past three days, as authorities are carrying out controlled breaches of embankments in a desperate attempt to save big cities from deluges, a minister said on Saturday.

Rescuers backed by army troops are evacuating thousands of people stranded in the flood-hit areas as massive deluges are flowing southward to fall into the mighty Indus River.

Punjab's Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb told reporters in the provincial capital Lahore that nearly half a million people have already been evacuated from different districts.

It is for the first time in the country's 78-year history that the three eastern rivers – Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej – have overflown simultaneously, inundating over 2,000 villages and affecting more than 1.5 million people so far.

Aurangzeb said that some 500 camps across the province have been set up to provide shelter to the affected people.

Footage aired on local broadcaster Geo News showed rescuers rescuing people taking shelter on rooftops and even on trees in the flood-stricken areas in Kasur district.

Another footage showed rescuers, through megaphones, asking the residents living near river banks and low-lying areas to evacuate.

In Multan, which is likely to be hit by the raging floods on Sunday, the administration has set a target of relocating 300,000 residents to safer locations by Saturday night.

Authorities in southern Sindh province have urged the residents living downstream to get ready for mandatory evacuations as the Indus River is likely to flow in high flood next week.

"We have put the people and authorities on high alert as the floodwaters from the three rivers are coming to Indus River," Jam Khan Shoro, a provincial minister, who is overseeing the relief activities in Sindh, told reporters.

The latest floods are seen as the worst after the 2022 catastrophic deluges that inundated a third of the country, aside from killing over 1,700 people and causing whopping $32 billion losses in infrastructure, according to government statistics.