An approaching tropical storm triggered torrential rains in Pakistan's largest city and surrounding areas Sunday, damaging mud houses and submerging roads. Seven people were electrocuted in floodwaters, officials said. Authorities feared worse flooding was to come and tried to evacuate people from their homes along the country's southern coastline. Some villagers refused to move, but several thousand people shifted to higher ground, many from two islands, said Hamal Kalmati, a government minister in Balochistan province. He said many mud houses in Gawadar and Pasni districts had already collapsed. The storm was expected to make landfall later Sunday, bringing more rain and winds as high as 80 kilometers an hour. In Karachi, hours of rain left roads under more than one foot of water. Electricity was cut in many districts in the mostly low-lying city of 18 million people. Many parts of Karachi and other towns along Pakistan's coast are desperately poor. Roads, bridges, houses and drainage systems are already in bad condition, making them vulnerable to high winds, heavy rain and rough seas. Hospitals in the Karachi area have been put on alert and medicines and tinned food stockpiled, as meteorologists warn the cyclone may uproot power and communication lines along the coast. Chief meteorologist Mohammad Riaz said the cyclone could generate ocean waves of up to four meters (over 13 feet). President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered lawmakers in Sindh to speed up relief work in areas expected to be battered by torrential rains, according to an official statement. Pakistani authorities have already evacuated 60,000 people from along the 1,000-kilometer coastline, including 23,000 on outlying islands. Hundreds of relief camps have been established in the affected areas but people have complained about the lack of facilities. Riaz said the authorities had recorded 128 millimeters of rain in the first spell of a cyclone-related downpour late Saturday and that more was expected. “Heavy rains may cause flash flooding in Karachi and other parts of Sindh and the southwestern Balochistan province,” he said. The government has established relief camps in school buildings and set up health units and control rooms ready to operate if needed, an official said. A government official in Balochistan province, Ataullah Mengal, said cyclone-related rains had injured 18 people in the coastal areas but no deaths had been reported.
