Nearly 300,000 people have been evacuated in the past 48 hours from flood-hit areas of Pakistan’s Punjab province following the latest flood alerts by India, officials have said, bringing the total number of people displaced since last month to 1.3 million.
A new flood alert was shared with Pakistan by neighbouring India through diplomatic channels early on Wednesday, said Arfan Ali Kathia, director-general of Punjab’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority.
Floodwaters have submerged dozens of villages in Punjab’s Muzaffargarh district, after earlier inundating Narowal and Sialkot, both near the border with India.
Authorities are also struggling to divert overflowing rivers onto farmlands to protect major cities, as part of one of the largest rescue and relief operations in the his