By Shahid Gul Yusufzai
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan has launched a relief operation for 20,000 people stricken by torrential rains in the southwest, after floods and avalanches killed over 260 nationwide so far.
There were more fatalities from avalanches in mountainous areas of nearby parts of Afghanistan and Indian-held Kashmir, but it was Pakistan that suffered most.
Authorities rushed in thousands of troops to help rescue efforts in the remote province of Baluchistan. Local government spokesman Razak Bugti said 500 people were missing after a dam burst late Thursday following the worst deluge in 16 years.
Newspapers reported officials saying thousands of families in Baluchistan, Pakistan’s poorest province, had lost their homes, crops and livestock.
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Villages near the coastal town of Pasni bore the brunt of the destruction when waters breached the Shadikor dam, sweeping away people and houses. Provincial minister Sher Jan Baluch said the death toll from the disaster had risen to 71.
Pasni lies about 800 km (500 miles) south of the provincial capital, Quetta. More than 40 people have been killed in other rain-affected parts of the province.
President Pervez Musharraf said he was going to visit the area to personally take charge.
"I will oversee relief operations. A C-130 plane is standing before me," Musharraf told Geo Television from Gawadar airport.
Officials said at least five villages, home to around 7,000 people, had been submerged by waters pouring from the ruptured dam, a 35-metre (115-feet) high embankment 300 metres (985 feet) long constructed just two years ago.
Four thousand people living near the Akra Caur Dam supplying water to nearby Gawadar port had also been evacuated as water levels passed danger limits, officials said.
"People have taken shelter on nearby high ground and helicopters are lifting them from there," said Bashir Baluch, a resident of Gawadar, describing the situation in Suntsar, a small town between Pasni and Gawadar.
Parts of Pasni were under a metre (3 feet) of water, and tents had been put up on higher ground for displaced families.
"The people who have taken shelter on their rooftops have been picked up and provided shelter in the government buildings," said an official at Baluchistan’s Crisis Control Cell.
Officials say 6,000 army, paramilitary and navy troops have been mobilised.
Military transport planes and trucks were ferrying in food, blankets, tents and other emergency supplies, while helicopters flew over flooded areas as several bridges along the main coastal highway had been washed away.
AVALANCHES ACROSS BORDERS
Avalanches, flash floods and roof collapses wrought havoc in the mountainous north and northwest, where around 150 people were reported killed over the past week and snowdrifts blocked roads through the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges.
In the worst single incident, some 33 Kashmiri villagers perished in an avalanche that struck Mathawali Siri hamlet in the Neelam Valley, Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Faisal Saleh Hayat told Reuters.
At least 11 people died in avalanches elsewhere in Pakistan’s part of Kashmir, and houses were evacuated in the capital Muzaffarabad because of the threat that the downpour could trigger a landslide.
An army helicopter on Saturday picked up 16 troopers caught in an avalanche in North West Frontier Province’s Teerah valley three days ago, and rescuers were trying to reach five more stranded soldiers. Twenty-three were still unaccounted for.
On the Indian side of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir at least 14 soldiers were killed by avalanches, as the authorities battled to clear snow from roads that had left close to 3,000 people stuck for almost five days on the main highway linking its capital Srinagar to the rest of India.
"It was a nightmare, we ate two pieces of bread a day and slept in our vehicles in freezing temperatures," said Abdul Hamid, one of the unlucky travellers.
By Saturday, some routes had been re-opened allowing around half the stranded people to resume their journey.
"Rescue and relief operations are going on a war-footing. There are around 1,400 passengers still stranded in the area," Niaz Mahmood, a senior traffic police official, told Reuters.
Avalanches killed at least nine people in Afghanistan, and around 10 people, several of them children, froze to death in a refugee camp in southeast Paktia province.
