Half-a-million people flee homes in Pakistan’s Punjab to escape flooding

Mass evacuations were still ongoing in the flood-hit Muzaffargarh district and other areas, authorities said (A Rizvi/AP)

Rivers were swelling to dangerous levels in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, forcing more than half-a-million people to flee their homes in the past 24 hours, officials said on Thursday.

The latest evacuations bring the total number of people displaced since last month to 1.8 million, according to Punjab relief commissioner Nabeel Javed.