1,200 People Feared Dead in Raging Pakistan Floods
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TURBAT, Pakistan — Raging flood waters have submerged a remote corner of southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 100 people and washing away huts, hospitals and a school where dozens of students had been trapped.
About 1,200 people were missing and feared dead Wednesday.
The one-room religious school was submerged by high water Tuesday, drowning 35 of 39 pupils there, said Ghulam Mohammed Afridi, an official in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province.
In Marriabad, a village of 6,000, Nasir Mohammed watched as the flood swept away two dozen members of his family. He survived by clinging to a tree.
Rains that began Sunday turned the usually dry Dasht River into a torrent that roared over hundreds of homes, most of them made of sunbaked mud and straw.
Mohammed said his relatives had stacked beds on top of each other to escape as the water rose Monday and Tuesday. Then, a gush of water swept them all away, he said.
Afridi estimated that 500,000 people are homeless. He said there was barely enough aid for a few hundred.
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