Pakistan floods: third-largest dam at risk

Mark Tran and agencies in the Guardian (UK): Further rainfall and rising water levels threatened Pakistan's third-largest dam as relief officials warned that diseases could become the biggest killer in the country's most destructive floods in more than 30 years.

Officials asked residents in the northern outskirts of Peshawar, in north-west Pakistan, to leave their homes as water levels rose at Warsak dam. "If needed, forced evacuation will be started," said Adnan Khan, a spokesman for the disaster management authority of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province.

Gorged rivers flowing from the north-west began to flood villages in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province and home to many of its biggest farms. About 3,000 people were marooned in the Kot Addu area of southern Punjab after the water breached a protection bank, forcing the army to evacuate people using boats and helicopters.

…Abdul Sami Malik, of Unicef, said: "What we have heard from Punjab is that 50,000 people have already been displaced and 200,000 people are being evacuated from Sindh."…