400,000 affected by floods in Pakistan

Helicopters were today being used to airdrop urgent relief aid to some of the more than 400,000 people battered by monsoon-spawned flooding in coastal areas of Pakistan.

Many of the stricken were living in higher open areas or on the roofs of buildings to escape the floodwaters which inundated large areas of Baluchistan province in wake of Cyclone Yemyin, said Tariq Ayub, the provincial home secretary.