Dyke blown up in Jhang to protect city from floods

Pakistan News: Officials said Wednesday that authorities have blown up the bridge to convert strategic raging flood waters away from Jhang, as the number of deaths exceeded 250 in all parts of the country: Lahore.

The authority said the National Disaster Management have been affected more than half a million people due to the floods, which began in the Kashmir region last week and flew downriver in Punjab.

The water swept away homes and destroyed roads and vast tracts of agricultural land in a chilling reminder of the damage wrought by flooding in 2010, the worst in the history of the country, killing more than 1,700 people and affected 18 million people.

A senior official at the provincial Disaster Management told AFP in the central city of Jhang in Punjab, the authorities deliberately breached dam to divert floodwaters.

"This was a breach of the latter option to save the lives and property of the population in Jhang, and this was inevitable to save the city," the official told AFP.

The city has a population of about 400,000 in the last census in 1998.