Collapsed dam kills 80 in Pakistan

NANO VILLAGE, Pakistan – Troops and rescue workers raced to a coastal town devastated when heavy rains burst a large dam, sending water surging through the streets and sweeping people into the Arabian Sea. At least 80 people were dead and hundreds missing, an official said today.

Coast guard units combed the area with fishing nets, pulling bodies out of the flood waters in the worst of several disasters caused by extreme winter weather in Pakistan over the past week or so.

The 485-foot-long Shakidor Dam burst late Thursday near the remote Pasni village in Baluchistan province, about 1,180 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad. The torrent of water from the ruined dam swept trucks out to sea and destroyed telephone lines, roads and eight bridges, according to officials and witnesses.

The exact human toll was unclear.

Officials said 1,500 people had been rescued from the floodwaters, while another 500 were evacuated from the area. Some 400 remained missing, said army spokesman Mudasser Butt.

A provincial Cabinet minister, Sher Jan Baluch, said today that 80 bodies had been recovered, but that he feared the death toll might rise.

Apart from the dam accident, the weather has left dozens of people dead or missing around Pakistan, according to officials.

At least two people were killed and 18 missing when floodwaters overturned their bus early Friday in southern Pakistan, while an avalanche in the country’s northwest buried 30 soldiers in their vehicles. Elsewhere, the snow and rain caused fatal housing collapses.

Pakistan has been hit by more than a week of heavy rain and snow, and more severe weather was expected in the next two days, said Qamar-uz Zaman Chaudhry, head of the country’s meteorological department.