Cyclone Yemyin also killed 19 people after roaring in from the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, packing winds of up to 130 kilometres (80 miles) per hour. It has now weakened and moved into neighbouring Iran.

Dozens of villages were submerged and vital roads washed away by storm surges and swollen rivers caused by the storm, officials and residents said, while the navy was trying to evacuate several low-lying islands.

Television footage showed a large cargo ship stranded on a beach as waves rolled in.

"The cyclone and the rain have left around 250,000 people homeless," Khuda Bakhsh Baloch, the relief commissioner of badly-hit southwest Baluchistan province, told AFP.

"We have asked the authorities to arrange the immediate airlift of relief supplies to the affected areas as road links have been badly damaged," Baloch said.

Telephone links were down to most of the affected region but residents who could be contacted said they had seen no sign of aid.

"Hundreds of people climbed up to the hills, the trees and the rooftops and are waiting for any relief," said Hamal Baloch, a resident from low-lying Kechh district in Baluchistan, told AFP by mobile telephone.

"We are hungry, we are thirsty, the authorities say they are sending helicopters but we have not seen any," he added.

Continuing rain was hampering aid efforts, said provincial government spokesman Raziq Bugti. "People need more assistance. We have relief helicopters ready but the weather is not permitting," he said.

The navy said it was using helicopters to airlift food to about 350 bus and car passengers who were stranded by an overflowing river about 180 kilometres (110 miles) west of Karachi.

Around 1,000 vehicles were also stranded on another main road, officials said.

The devastation caused by Yemyin comes after more than 230 people were killed at the weekend when another storm hit Karachi and nearby Baluchistan. Almost all the deaths were in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city.

One person was electrocuted in Karachi overnight, taking the toll from the cyclone to 19. Officials said 10 people died in Baluchistan and another eight in neighbouring Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.

Rescuers were also trying to evacuate thousands of people from fishing villages on islands off the coast of Sindh, local fishermen's association leader Siraj Khoro said.

"People in these islands could not be evacuated because of a shortage of speedboats and other resources. We have asked the authorities to rush us the necessary equipment" he added.

Coast guards and the navy rescued 25 more people from two boats stranded in the sea but dozens of fishermen were still missing, he said.

Meteorological department chief Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry said the weather was improving in most of southern Pakistan after the cyclone moved northwest overnight. "It has entered Iran now," Zaman told AFP.

Cyclone Yemyin is the second major storm of the north Indian Ocean cyclone season after Cyclone Gonu hit Oman, Iran and parts of southwestern Pakistan in early June, killing more than 60 people.

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