Pakistan evacuates thousands as floods hit plains

Pakistani troops used helicopters and boats to evacuate thousands of marooned people from the country's plains where raging monsoon floods inundated more villages Thursday, officials said. In neighboring India, the military dropped food for hundreds of thousands of people marooned in flood-hit areas of Indian-held Kashmir, The Associated Press reported.

Pakistani and Indian officials said the death toll had reached 461 in the two countries.

Flash floods have washed away crops, damaged tens of thousands of homes and affected over a million people since Sept. 3, when heavy monsoon rains lashed Pakistan's eastern Punjab province and the Kashmir region, claimed by both India and Pakistan.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the Pakistan-administered portion of Kashmir on Thursday and told flood victims that his government would do whatever it can to rebuild their damaged homes. "I am grieved over the deaths caused by the floods," he said in a televised speech.

Ahmad Kamal, a spokesman for Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority, said 261 people have been killed and 482 injured in Pakistan. "The situation is still alarming as flood waters are entering the country's plains in the Jhang district, inundating more villages and affecting thousands," he said.