INDIA:Heavy monsoon rains have claimed almost 350 lives in Pakistan and India and made tens of thousands of people homeless.
The southern Pakistani port city of Karachi was the worst hit in Saturday night's storm in which 228 people were believed to have died when flimsy houses in the city's large shanty neighbourhoods collapsed and falling power lines electrocuted many residents, including children.
A 22-year-old woman, her two-year-old son and three-year-old daughter were among the dead in the poor Gadab Town area populated mostly by factory and farm workers, Karachi's mayor, Mustafa Kamal, said.
A relief camp was set up in Gadab Town to provide food, medicine and shelter to people whose homes were destroyed or damaged, and municipal workers were trying to restore power supplies and clear the streets of trees, billboards and other debris.
"We are doing our best to restore the power supply, but the situation is very bad," said Syed Sultan Hasan, a spokesman for Karachi's power utility, as angry residents threw stones at passing cars and electricity company vehicles and burned tyres to express their outrage at the slow pace of the relief work.
Incessant rain lashed the adjoining southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as parts of western Maharashtra province, of which Mumbai (formerly Bombay) is the capital, claiming about 120 lives, officials said. High winds also partially sank a cargo ship, with 24 crew members on board, off India's southwest coast on Saturday. One person died.
Aid workers, backed up by military support helicopters, were trying to provide food and water to almost 300,000 people displaced by monsoon flooding across the region.