Pakistan ordered nearly half a million people to evacuate towns Thursday as rising floods threaten further havoc in a country straining to cope after its worst humanitarian disaster. Torrential monsoon rains triggered massive floods affecting a fifth of the country where a US official warned that foreign aid workers are at risk from Taliban attacks. Villagers in the south fled from where the Indus delta merges towards the Arabian Sea, trailing north in vans laden with furniture or crowded into buses, or in carts pulled by oxen. Some people were on foot, leading their livestock. Water lined the road from Hyderabad to Thatta town, as workers frantically used bulldozers to dig embankments only just higher than the flooding, and where people camped out under open skies or in makeshift tents. The catastrophe has affected more than 17 million people and left eight million dependent on aid to survive. The Pakistani government has confirmed 1,600 people dead and 2,366 wounded, but officials warn that millions are at risk from diseases and food shortages. In the southern province of Sindh, where the floods have washed away huge swathes of the rich farmland on which Pakistan's struggling economy depends, a senior administration official warned that fresh floods threaten three towns. “We have warned people of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro towns to leave for safer places in view of possible flooding there,” Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro, the senior official in Thatta district, said.Charity Iftar An amount of Rs200,000 was collected for flood victims during a charity Iftar arranged by the Consulate General of Pakistan, Jeddah, at the Pakistan International School Wednesday night, a consulate press release said in Jeddah Thursday. Pakistan Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Umar Khan Alisherzai assured the gathering that their donations will reach the needy. He said rescue was the first stage of relief operation and rehabilitation will be the second stage.
