TURBAT, Pakistan (AP) — 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.
Some 1,200 people were missing and feared dead Wednesday.
Rains that began Sunday turned the usually dry Dasht River into a torrent that roared over hundreds of homes, most of them made of sun-baked mud and straw, said Noor Ahmed Shah, an official in Baluchistan province.
Residents of Turbat, a city of several thousand, said the rains had flooded dozens of homes, shops and at least two hospitals. Medical equipment was damaged and patients had to be moved to higher ground.
Relentless rain and poor roads hampered relief and rescue efforts in Turbat, 370 miles west of the port city of Karachi.
The Pakistan government and the privately run Edhi emergency service sent helicopters with supplies into the water-soaked areas.
The full extent of the damage is not known in the remote region, where communications with outlying villages are poor or nonexistent.
Government officials in the region estimate at least 75 villages were inundated by relentless rain over the previous 36 hours.