Water begins receding in Pakistan’s worst flood-hit south

Floodwaters are receding in Pakistan’s worst-hit southern Sindh province, officials said Friday, a potentially bright sign in an ongoing crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless in the impoverished South Asian country.
The Indus River, which remained swollen until earlier this month, was now rushing at “normal” levels towards the Arabian Sea, according to Mohammad Irfan, an irrigation official in hard-hit Sindh. The water level in the past 48 hours receded as much as three feet in some of the inundated areas nearby, including the Khairpur and Johi towns, where waist-high water damaged crops and homes earlier this month.
A day earlier, engineers had opened a key highway in the southwestern Baluchistan province, allowing rescue workers to speed aid to those suffering in a race against the spread of waterborne diseases and dengue fever.
Still, hundreds of thousands of people in Sindh are living in makeshift homes and tents. Authorities say it will take months to completely drain the water in Sindh.