Enlarge imageBy Shahid Gul Yusufzai
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan has launched a huge relief operation for some 20,000 people stricken by torrential rains in the southwest, as floods and avalanches pushed the death toll over 230 nationwide.
Authorities rushed in thousands of troops to help rescue efforts in the remote province of Baluchistan. Local government spokesman Razak Bugti said on Saturday 500 people were missing after a dam burst following the country’s worst deluge in 16 years.
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.
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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.
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-ft) high embankment 300 metres 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 ft) of water, and tents had been put up on higher ground for the 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 had been mobilised.
One military official in Quetta said two army transport planes were flying in later on Saturday carrying food, blankets, tents and other emergency supplies.
He said at least 70 trucks carrying relief assistance had also been dispatched to the affected areas.
Several bridges along the main coastal highway had been washed away, and helicopters were flying over flooded areas.
AVALANCHES IN THE NORTH
Elsewhere in Pakistan, newspaper reports said 97 people had been killed and many were missing after torrential rains and heavy snowfall hit the North West Frontier Province. Most of the deaths were due to avalanches, flash floods or roof collapses.
Six people were killed and nine injured by falling ice and rock from a glacier in Mankial Balakot in the remote Swat Valley of North West Frontier Province, local officials said.
There was no word on the fate of some 30 soldiers caught in an avalanche in the province’s Teerah valley on Thursday.
Police in Pakistan-held Kashmir said 37 people were buried under an avalanche in Mathian village in the Neelam Valley. Four injured had been found but the rest were still unaccounted for.
In the Leepa Valley, also in Kashmir, one child out of a family of six survived when an avalanche struck their house.
Authorities in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir, evacuated homes on the city’s outskirts as a precaution against possible landslides as the rain continued to pour down.
The Northern Areas, where the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges meet, have been cut off, with roads buried under several feet of snow.
Eight people were killed when an avalanche hit some 25 houses on Friday in Astore valley of Gilgit district, police said.
The Karakoram Highway, linking Pakistan and China, has been blocked and flights in and out of the region have been suspended.
