Floodwaters make another break in Thatta levee

THATTA: Floodwaters made another break Saturday in the levees protecting the southern city of Thatta, as thousands of residents fled for high ground and left the city nearly empty.

Both sides of the main road were crowded with people - from Thatta and nearby flooded villages - fleeing the floodwaters. Many had spent the night sleeping out in the open.

Hadi Baksh Kalhoro, a Thatta disaster management official, said more than 175,000 people had left the city, leaving it nearly deserted.

Some are heading for nearby towns or cities, he said, with thousands also headed for the high ground of an ancient graveyard for Muslim saints.

He said the latest levee breach, which happened early Saturday, could leave the outskirts of Thatta flooded by later in the day. The city is about 75 miles (125 kilometers) southeast of the major coastal city of Karachi.

Sindh is the worst-affected province. Out of its 23 districts, 19 have so far been ravaged by floods, a statement by the United Nations' Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday.

“More than seven million people have been displaced in Sindh since August 3, one million only in the past two days,” Ghulam Ali Pasha, provincial relief commissioner for southern Sindh province told AFP.

Pasha said that 2.3 million people were still in need of tents and food.

“We are fighting to save Thatta and other towns,” in Sindh province, he added.

Thatta was deserted as people fled with their livestock and other belongings, heading for nearby Makli and Karachi as engineers tried to repair six-metre (20-foot) wide breach a nearby dyke, an AFP reporter said.

An OCHA spokesman in Islamabad Friday estimated that one million people had been displaced in a 48-hour period in Sindh alone.

The United Nations, the Pakistani army and a host of local and international relief groups have been rushing aid workers, medicine, food and water to the affected regions, but are unable to reach many people.

The new levee breach came as a gunbattle broke out at an office of security forces in the main city in Pakistan's northwest. The motive behind the attack, in the city of Peshawar, was not immediately clear, police said. – AP