Floods and avalanches kill at least 260 in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan - Pakistan launched a huge relief operation for some 20,000 people affected by torrential rains in the southwest, as floods and avalanches pushed the death toll over 260 nationwide, officials said.

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 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.

Pasni lies about 800km 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.

Officials said at least five villages, home to around 7000 people, had been submerged by waters pouring from the ruptured dam, a 35-metre 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 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 6000 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, flash floods and roof collapses wrought havoc in the north and northwest, where around 150 people have been reported killed so far.

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.

Five more people were killed in an avalanche in another Kashmiri valley, and authorities in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir, evacuated homes on the city's outskirts as a precaution against landslides as the downpour continued.

In North West Frontier Province, newspapers reported 97 people had died in the rain and snow over the past week.

An army helicopter on Saturday picked up 16 troopers caught in an avalanche in the province's Teerah valley three days ago, and rescuers are trying to reach five more stranded soldiers but 23 are still unaccounted for.

In the province's Swat Valley, six people were killed by falling ice and rock from a glacier in Mankial Balakot.

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 the Astore valley, police said.

The Karakoram Highway, linking Pakistan and China, has been blocked and flights in and out of the region have been suspended.

- REUTERS