Pakistan calls for aid as homeless flood toll reaches 1 million:
Pakistan has called on the international community to rush aid to 1 million people left homeless by massive flooding as more rain was set to hit stricken areas in coming days
Floods following a cyclone and rain have left as many as 100 people dead in southwestern Pakistan, a senior relief official said Sunday, but unofficial estimates are considerably higher.
Some 500 people have died across the subcontinent - in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan - since the start of the monsoon season in early July.
Following a two-day tour of the flooded area Sunday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz asked for relief and rehabilitation aid from foreign countries, international agencies and private donors.
He said more helicopters would be added to army efforts to ferry food, medicine and other relief supplies to areas of Baluchistan province which was hit by Cyclone Yemyin last Tuesday.
The flooding also has spread into adjacent Sindh province to the east, where some 20,000 people were rendered homeless in Shahdad Kot district after waters from a canal spilled over protective embankments, provincial relief comissioner Munir Ahmed said Monday.
Tariq Ayub, Baluchistan's home secretary, who is overseeing the flood relief operation, said many of the casualties occurred due to drowning and people getting trapped under the debris of their collapsing homes in 13 hardest-hit Baluchistan districts.
