KALAM, Pakistan — U.S. Army choppers flew their first relief missions in Pakistan’s flood-ravaged northwest Thursday, airlifting hundreds of stranded people to safety from a devastated tourist town and delivering emergency aid.
In the country’s south, authorities began evacuating half a million people as the worst monsoon rains in decades threatened new destruction.
The floods have already killed an estimated 1,500 people over the past week, most in the northwest, the center of Pakistan’s fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. An estimated 4.2 million Pakistanis have been affected, including many in eastern Punjab province, which has seen numerous villages swallowed by rising water in recent days.
The flooding is one of several crises that have hit Pakistan since mid-July, including a suicide bombing in the northwest city of Peshawar, a plane crash that killed 152 people in the capital and a spurt of politically motivated killings that have left dozens dead in Karachi.
Four U.S. Chinook helicopters landed in the resort town of Kalam in the Swat Valley, said an Associated Press reporter there. They flew hundreds of people to safer areas, he said.
