Floods hit a million in Pakistan, anger rises in Indian Kashmir

ISLAMABAD: Deadly flooding has affected more than one million people in Pakistan, officials said yesterday, as anger mounted in Indian Kashmir over the slow pace of rescue operations for hundreds of thousands left stranded.
The floods and landslides from days of heavy rains have now claimed more than 450 lives in Pakistan and India, where emergency workers scrambled to rescue residents left marooned on rooftops and clinging to trees.
"At least 1,091,807 people were affected in Punjab province and 31,800 in Pakistan-administered Kashmir," a senior official at Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.
Authorities blew up a strategic embankment to divert raging floodwaters that began in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir last week from a city in the populous Punjab province.
Khawaja Asif, minister for defence, water and power, said the drastic move was taken "to avert catastrophe" in Jhang, home to hundreds of thousands of people.
With many parts of Indian Kashmir's main city Srinagar still cut off days after the floods hit, residents and rescuers alike criticised the state government's response, with one military officer saying officials were nowhere to be seen.
Yesterday it emerged that one rescue officer had been wounded in an attack by furious residents earlier in the week as anger boiled over.
While thousands of soldiers and other emergency workers stepped up operations in India's Kashmir Valley as waters started to recede, the region's top leader said he could understand people's anger.
"We have really been overwhelmed. We have been overwhelmed by the scale of the problem," Jammu and Kashmir state Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told the CNN-IBN network.
"Our ability to supply people has been hampered by the fact that we have been unable to reach those areas. There are large parts of the city where even boats have not been able to reach.
"I understand their anger and I don't grudge them on that anger. They have gone through an extremely difficult time," he said of the rising frustrations.
More than 200 people have died in the region's worst floods in more than half a century.
In neighbouring Pakistan, another 256 people have been killed, with Punjab the worst-hit area and floods threatening to inundate more areas downriver.
The more than one million people affected include both those stranded at home and those who fled after the floods hit. – AFP