Hundreds Killed as Floods Ravage Areas of Pakistan

(July 30) -- Flash floods and landslides caused by three days of heavy monsoon rains have killed hundreds of people in Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan, according to reports today.

In an ever-changing situation, the death toll had reached 430, according to The Associated Press, which quoted a regional information minister as saying it was the worst flooding in Pakistan's northwest region in about 80 years.

Earlier, an official with Pakistan's largest charity, the Edhi Foundation, put the toll at 325, and the German news agency DPA said 397 people had died and more deaths were expected. The higher toll was expected because communications had been cut off in many areas, and reliable information was slow to come in, the agency said.

Villages, roads and bridges were washed away as rivers burst their banks, the BBC reported, with nearly half a million people displaced.

The highway between Peshawar to the capital of Islamabad was shut down, with at least 60 bridges destroyed, according to the northwest region's information minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussein.

The Pakistan meteorological department said an "unprecedented" 12 inches of rain had fallen in 36 hours, Agence France-Presse reported, with scattered showers expected to follow. Other reports said heavier rain was expected next week.

At least 22 deaths were confirmed in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, the AP said, and the BBC put the toll across the border in Afghanistan at about 60.

The northwest region was the hardest hit, but the southwest province of Balochistan was also struck hard, with 41 killed in flash floods last week, when 150,000 people were affected as thousands of homes were swept away, according to a U.N. statement.

U.S. Ambassador Ann Paterson said today that seven helicopters would be made available to help in the rescue effort, DPA reported in The Hindu Times.

The rural poor were hardest hit by the flooding, the BBC reported, because they cannot afford land in higher, and therefore safer, areas.

The disaster follows the death of 152 people on Wednesday when an airliner crashed into hills near Islamabad. Weather conditions during the July monsoon season were cited as a possible cause of the crash.