Rains cause chaos in Pakistani city as 220 killed
Sun Jun 24, 2007 10:43AM EDT
By Imtiaz Shah
KARACHI (Reuters) - Storms and torrential rain have killed more than 200 people in
Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, a provincial minister said on Sunday, and left angry residents without power.
"Now the total number of those killed because of rain is 228," provincial Health Minister Sardar Ahmed told Reuters. "These deaths are caused by electrocution, falling trees, house collapses and road accidents."
More bad weather is forecast for Pakistan and neighboring India, where dozens have died after prolonged downpours across the country in the last few days. Aid workers and military helicopters in India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh were battling on Sunday to provide food for 200,000 people displaced by monsoon floods.
Karachi residents hurled stones at passing cars and power company vehicles and burned tires in protest at the power outage affecting most of the country's commercial hub.
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In
Andhra Pradesh, southern India, officials revised down the death toll from this weekend's rains to 35, but said 24,000 houses had collapsed and 200,000 people were left homeless.
"Soldiers and naval helicopters have taken up rescue operations in Kurnool and Guntur districts ... where people are stranded on rooftops and up trees," said Preeti Sudan, the state's disaster management commissioner.
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In the southwestern tourist state of Kerala about 20 people have been killed since Friday, many electrocuted by falling power lines or swept away by landslides.
In
northern areas of Bangladesh, about 30 people have died of diarrhea and other water-borne diseases over the past week after the Brahmaputra river flooded.(Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz in Karachi, a Reuters reporter in Hyderabad and Nizam Ahmed in Dhaka)
(Writing by Zeeshan Haider, editing by Catherine Evans; Reuters Messaging:
zeeshan.haider.reuters.com@reuters.net; +92-51-281 0017))
