Like a sea, says Pak PM as toll touches 1,343

Scene on the outskirts of Jacobabad, Sindh province, on Tuesday. Pic/AFP

Parts of Pakistan seemed "like a sea", Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday, after visiting some of the flood-hit areas that cover as much as a third of the South Asian nation, where 18 more deaths took the toll from days of rain to 1,343.

As many as 33 million of a population of 220 million have been affected in a disaster blamed on climate change that has left hundreds of thousands homeless and caused losses of at least $10 billion, officials estimate. "You wouldn't believe the scale of destruction there," Sharif told media after a visit to the southern province of Sindh. "It is water everywhere as far as you could see. It is just like a sea."

The government, which has boosted cash handouts for flood victims to 70 billion Pakistani rupees ($313.90 million), will buy 200,000 tents to house displaced families, he added. Receding waters threaten a new challenge in the form of water-born infectious diseases, Sharif said. "We will need trillions of rupees to cope with this calamity." The UN has called for $160 million in aid to help the flood victims.

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