By Shahid Gul Yusufzai
QUETTA, Pakistan, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Pakistan stepped up search and rescue operations on Sunday for tens of thousands affected by flash floods after the heaviest rains in the country in two decades, in which close to 300 people have been killed.
Army and navy helicopters scoured the area affected by a dam burst near the coastal town of Pasni where at least 87 people were killed and up to 2,000 went missing.
More than 20,000 people have been affected by subsequent flooding in Pasni, about 800 km (500 miles) south of Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province.
Baluchistan provincial government spokesman Raziq Bugti said thousands of soldiers were ferrying people to safety across the Pasni district where two more small dams burst late on Saturday, flooding about 20 villages.
"More than 200 people have been killed in Baluchistan alone," he said.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on state television the government has rushed blankets, tents and other relief goods to villages near Pasni while President Pervez Musharraf, who personally toured the area, announced financial compensation.
The unusually heavy rain and snow has hammered other parts of Pakistan as well.
In mountainous Kohistan district in northern Pakistan, four houses were crushed by an avalanche killing at least 16 people while as many were believed to be still missing, Rao Amin Hashim, deputy inspector general of police in the region, told Reuters.
Late on Saturday, four people were killed in a village in Abbottabad district, near Islamabad, due to a landslide and a roof collapsed on a group of women in a village in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) killing five of them immediately.
"The situation is extremely bad but there is a lot of confusion about casualties," an emergency relief coordinator said in Islamabad.
"We are still getting reports but it is hard to confirm them because most of the areas are either very remote or link roads are closed," said the official who asked not to be named.
Avalanches, flash floods and roof collapses have wrought havoc in the mountainous north and northwest Pakistan over the past week and snowdrifts have blocked roads through the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges.
The incessant rain and snow has triggered avalanches in mountainous areas of nearby parts of Afghanistan and Indian-controlled Kashmir as well.
Weather officials said rain had abated in parts of Pakistan on Sunday but warned Baluchistan and the northern areas would get more rain and snow for at least two days.
"This kind of rainfall and snowfall in some areas was recorded after 25 to 26 years," Qamar un-Zaman Chauhdry, head of Pakistan Meteorological Department, told Reuters. "Hopefully, after two days the weather system will end."