Victims protest lack of post-cyclone aid

Pakistani children use tire tubes as they cross a flooded street in Lahore yesterday. At least 280 people have now lost their lives in severe pre-monsoon weather in Pakistan in the past week, as officials struggle to distribute aid. PHOTO: AFP

Hungry victims of monsoon-spawned floods rioted yesterday, protesting slow, meager aid reaching their marooned villages where many feared the receding waters would yield numerous corpses.

Police fired tear gas and shots into the air but failed to disperse a crowd of several thousand villagers who broke into and ransacked the mayor's office in this city in southwestern Pakistan ringed by floodwaters.

The widespread flooding struck in the wake of a cyclone that dumped torrential rains on the province of Baluchistan.

The protesters said they had waded through chest-deep water from outlying areas to voice their anger about the dearth of relief aid. Only packets of biscuits and bottles of water had been received, they said.

"Every family is looking for one or two members. They are all missing," said Chaker Baloth, who walked more than 40km through the night to reach this city of some 150,000. Others feared they would never see their missing family members again.

"I don't know if there are more fish or bodies in the Mirani Dam," said one local official, about the expanded lake behind the dam which engulfed many communities about 40km north of Turbat.

Military helicopters continued to drop relief supplies, but many of the more than 800,000 people hit by monsoon flooding in southwest Pakistan appeared to have received little or nothing.

Many of those affected were stranded in high open areas or on roofs in Baluchistan Province following Cyclone Yemyin on Tuesday.

The total number of lives lost in the unusually severe flooding is still unknown and officials said an accurate toll would only be possible after the floodwaters receded.

Twenty people died in flash floods Thursday in the northwestern Khyber Agency tribal region, said government official Ilyas Khan.

Floods that damaged several bridges in the region have forced the temporary suspension of the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees through the North West Frontier Province, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Friday.

More than 2 million Afghans still live in camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border, having fled decades of conflict in their country.

Floods have also ravaged four eastern provinces of neighboring Afghanistan, causing at least four deaths, a NATO statement said.

Monsoon storms have claimed more than 120 lives in India.

Khubah Bakhsh, the relief commissioner for Baluchistan, said that 200,000 houses had been destroyed or damaged.

He said that more than 800,000 people have been severely affected by the floods.

In one of the hardest-hit areas -- Turbat city and surrounding villages -- the first relief supplies only began arriving Thursday, about 48 hours after the cyclone hit, leading to angry protests from the residents and the resignation of the mayor

"We have been saved from the flood, but we may die of starvation," said Mohammed Kash, a teacher at a rural school.

People, cows and goats were seen from a helicopter, stranded on rooftops without water or food, in sweltering 43?C heat.