Protests in Pakistan as South Asia rains toll hits 500
Pastor Dale Morgan
Saturday June 30, 1:27 AM
*Protests in Pakistan as South Asia rains toll hits 500*
Pakistani police fired tear gas to disperse a protest by some of the 1.1
million victims of a cyclone Friday, as fresh storms hit India and
flooded villages awaiting help in Afghanistan.
About 500 people have now been killed by more than a week of severe
weather that has swept across the coastlines, plains and mountains of
South Asia with the approach of the annual summer monsoon.
In Pakistan, 1,000 protesters smashed up the mayor's office in the
largely-submerged southwestern town of Turbat, saying they had received
no relief goods since tropical Cyclone Yemyin struck on Tuesday.
Six people were wounded including the local police chief when police
launched tear gas shells and fired live bullets in the air, an AFP
photographer said.
"Our homes have been destroyed, there has been no drinking water and no
food for the last four days. There is water everywhere," said farmer
Ghulam Jan, 27.
Blazing sun scorched people still sheltering on the rooftops of houses
and mosques after the rain stopped in Turbat, but helicopters bearing
aid were again grounded because of continuing downpours elsewhere.
Khuda Bakhsh Baloch, the relief commissioner for Baluchistan province,
said 1.1 million people were now known to have been affected by the
cyclone. About 250,000 of them are homeless, while at least 21 have died.
"The situation is serious, we know that people are suffering," Baloch
told AFP. "The more rain that comes, the worse it gets."
Devastating thunderstorms killed 235 people on Saturday in the sprawling
southern port city of Karachi, hundreds of kilometres (miles) east of
Turbat. Several more people are missing at sea.
Meanwhile along Pakistan's rugged northwestern border with Afghanistan
at least 36 people died in rain-related accidents, federal relief chief
Farooq Ahmed told a briefing.
Most of the dead in the area are Afghan refugees whose houses collapsed
in Landikotal -- the main town in the semi-autonomous Khyber tribal
district and the last before the famous Khyber Pass border crossing,
officials said.
Another five people drowned when flood waters swept them away as they
collected firewood in the Himalayan district of Diamer, police said.
In Afghanistan, the United States said it was providing aid and
assistance after floods caused by unseasonal downpours in the east of
the country left more than 50 people dead and several thousand homeless.
Afghan officials said special teams were still assessing the damage
Friday, while about 100 people have been lifted to safety with the help
of NATO helicopters.
"More than 2,000 people are homeless here. The flooding is over but
people are in a very bad condition and people need more aid," said
Shalizai Didar, the governor of eastern Kunar province bordering Pakistan.
"The American people express their sympathy and solidarity with the
victims and the families of those afflicted by this terrible tragedy,"
the United States Agency for International Development said in a statement.
In India, huge waves caused by a depression over the Bay of Bengal
submerged at least two seaside villages in the eastern state of Orissa,
affecting around 200 families, the Press Trust of India news agency
reported.
The waves up to 3.5 metres (12 feet) high also damaged a 1,200-year-old
temple and a school, it said.
Monsoon rains claimed around 144 lives last weekend in western and
southern India. The area suffered heavy downpours and flash floods.
However the Indian meteorological department said on Friday that this
year's monsoon, which is crucial for hundreds of millions of farmers --
would deliver less rain than previously forecast -- 93 percent of the
normal rainfall.