Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Islamabad,The toll in Pakistan floods has risen to 257 on Thursday even as troops with helicopters and boats have evacuated 4,000 more people marooned in the raging monsoon floods.
On Thursday, the Pakistan military expanded its relief operations in eastern Punjab province where the overflowing Chenab river is causing extensive damage.
Some half a million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan and large tracts of farmland have been inundated.
Hospitals in the flood-affected areas are struggling to cope with the disaster.
The army on Thursday planted explosives to blow three strategic dykes to divert waters away from the southern Punjab cities of Muzaffargarh and Multan, a major agricultural centre and the main hub for Pakistan’s important cotton industry, said a report.
Similar measures were taken on Wednesday to protect the city of Jhang, where 10,000 people were evacuated overnight, it said.
An official in Multan said all schools in the area will be closed for the next two days.
In neighbouring India , army and air force transport aircraft and helicopters are dropping water bottles, biscuits, baby food and food packets for hundreds of thousands of people marooned in flood-hit areas of Kashmir.
The flooding, which began earlier this month in Kashmir, has claimed the lives of some 460 people on both sides of the border.
