At least 11 districts are at risk of flooding in Sindh: UN

Pakistan went on red alert Friday for extreme flooding in its rich agricultural south, evacuating half a million people from at-risk areas as catastrophic flooding worsened. The nearly two-week-old crisis has affected more than four million across the volatile and largely impoverished country, after floods washed away entire villages and killed at least 1,600, according to UN estimates.
Authorities in the densely populated southern province of Sindh warned that major floods were expected in the next 48 hours in the fertile basin along the swollen Indus river.
Manuel Bessler, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Pakistan, described the situation as a "major catastrophe".
The meteorological office issued a red alert overnight, warning of an "imminent" and "extreme" flood threat to Sindh, especially along the Indus, as flooding spread to Indian-held Kashmir, killing at least 60 people.
"At least 11 districts are at risk of flooding in Sindh, where more than 500,000 people have been relocated to safer places and evacuation still continues," said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
More than 252,000 homes are thought to have been damaged or destroyed across northwest and central Pakistan, and it could take weeks before electricity and other infrastructure is fully restored.
Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo said that hundreds of villages were flooded in the province and that embankments at Sukkur barrage were being reinforced.
"Some 200,000 people have been evacuated and we are now forcing the people not willing to leave the area.

"Unprecedented rain has also hindered rescue and relief activities, but we are working with army and navy to avoid any loss of human life," he said.
Further north in Punjab, an AFP reporter saw an exodus of people streaming out of flooded villages, wading barefoot through water, cramming belongings onto donkey carts and into cars under heavy rain on Thursday.
The flooding has threatened electricity generation plants, forcing units to shut down in a country suffering from a crippling energy crisis.
Only three of 12 units are now functioning at the 1,200-megawatt Kot Addu Power Company plant, the director general of the state-owned Pakistan Electric Power Co., Mohammad Khalid, told AFP.