By Aamir Latif
ISLAMABAD
Around 250,000 people have been marooned in northeastern Pakistan as flash floods, which have already affected over 600 villages, are expected to strike the southern Sindh province this week, officials said.
The water level in the Indus river continues to rise as the government issued a red alert for various districts of Sindh province.
The number of casualties of floods and rain-related accidents in the last five days has soared to 207, Kamal Ahmed, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority - a government organization that coordinates between different relief and rescue agencies, told reporters.
Torrential rain which led to flashfloods hit the northern parts of the Punjab and Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Thursday causing widespread devastation. Hundreds of thousands in Gujranwala, Gujrat, Kasur, Wazirabad, Multan, Okara and other districts in the northeastern Punjab province have already fled to safety, while authorities have asked thousands more to pack up with immediate effect.
TV footage showed many people taking refuge on the roofs of their houses, trees and on other higher ground in Hafizabad, Wazirabad, Chiniot, and the Pindi Bhattian district to await help. Army helicopters threw food packets and water bottles to the marooned people in the flood-stricken districts. Kamal said the army had been called out on Thursday, and used helicopters and boats to rescue the stranded people in different parts of the Punjab. Their rescue efforts since Thursday saved around around 25,000 people stranded in floodwater.
69 people have been killed in the last five days in the most affected district of the state capital Lahore in rain-related incidents and around 24 people have been killed in Kashmir alone.
Pakistan has faced the worst floods of its history in 2010 when nearly 2,000 people were killed, and left one-fifth of the country affected as well as wreaking destruction on thousands of houses, schools, hotels and other buildings.
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