Pakistanis use stones, sandbags to fight floods
HYDERABAD, Pakistan — Workers placed sandbags and stones to strengthen river levees in flood-ravaged Pakistan's south as the rising water threatened new areas Sunday.
Three towns in the Thatta district were in danger, and officials began evacuating around 150,000 people from lower lying areas Saturday. The surge in the Indus River is expected to empty into the Arabian Sea after passing through.
At least two levees along the river are potential trouble spots and are being strengthened, said Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro, an official with the Sindh province Disaster Management Authority.
"We are hopeful the flood will pass on to the delta without creating much trouble here," he said.
Officials expect the floodwaters will recede nationwide in the next few days as the last river torrents empty into the Arabian Sea, state news agency APP reported.
But when that happens, millions of Pakistanis will almost certainly want the government, which was already constrained by a fragile economy before the flood, to quickly deliver homes and compensation for the loss of livestock and crops.
The government has been accused of moving too slowly and Islamist charities, some with suspected links to militant groups, have moved rapidly to provide relief to Pakistanis, already frustrated with their leaders' track record on the economy, security, poverty and by chronic power shortages.
