Flood victims in Pakistan take shelter in camps

Hundreds of families have taken shelter in a makeshift camp in Pakistan's Nowshera district, after the worst monsoon rains in decades caused floods that have killed about 1,500 people and displaced nearly three million over the past week.

The camp in the grounds of Nowshera's Government College of Technology is providing tents and basic supplies to people made homeless by the disaster. Nowshera is one of the areas worst affected by the flooding, which has spread from the northwest down the country.

More bad weather is hampering relief efforts across the region with storms grounding helicopters carrying emergency supplies. A spokeswoman for the National Disaster Management Authority, said all helicopters currently stationed in the northwest were grounded because of poor weather.

Much of the destruction has come from the Indus River, which flows south through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, and in better times irrigates vast swaths of farmland. The flooding is spreading south down the country as more heavy rain continues to fall.

In southern Sindh province, authorities have evacuated about 200,000 people from areas where floodwaters could hit, but many more were still living in the danger zone, said the head of the area's Provincial Disaster Management Authority.

Some 30,000 Pakistani soldiers are rebuilding bridges, delivering food and setting up relief camps in the northwest, which is the main battleground in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban.