Catastrophic rains, floods to trigger food shortages in Pakistan: UN

KARACHI:

The ongoing torrential rains and surging floods have inundated large swaths of farmlands and destroyed ready-to-reap crops across Pakistan, triggering fears of a food crisis and inflation, the UN and growers warned on Monday.

The raging floods struck the northeastern Punjab, the country's largest province and food basket, last week, submerging hundreds of villages, schools and health centers, washing away livestock and destroying crops, aside from killing around 50 people and triggering evacuations.

The surging floods have so far affected more than 2 million people, in ad-dition to evacuation of more than 700,000 people, according to official statistics.

The water is flowing further south to fall into the mighty Indus River and is feared to wreak havoc on southern Sindh provin