In Pakistan, rain and wind abated slightly two days after Cyclone Yemyin hit the southwestern coast, finally allowing seven helicopters to launch rescue operations in badly-hit Baluchistan province.

The flurry of relief work followed criticism on Wednesday by people stranded in the disaster zone who said they had no food or water and had seen none of the promised helicopters.

Troops evacuated more than 600 families from Turbat, a town 550 kilometres (330 miles) southwest of Quetta, which was "surrounded by water from all directions," a Pakistani military statement said.

Another 300 were evacuated from nearby Bela.

A navy helicopter rescued 40 people marooned on a rooftop near Turbat and two other choppers were evacuating car and bus passengers from the coastal highway, which was partly washed away by storm surges.

Four military aircraft also landed at Turbat and a nearby town early Thursday carrying relief goods and medicine.

But the situation at a swollen dam near Turbat was still "critical" with water above the danger level, said the statement, adding that a battalion of engineers was working to shore up the site.

Khuda Bakhsh Baloch, the Baluchistan provincial relief commissioner, told AFP that "around 800,000 people were affected by the calamity" in the five worst-hit districts near the coast.

Officials say around 250,000 of those people are homeless, while Yemyin also killed at least 21 people.

Storms at the weekend left around 230 people dead in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, which lies eastwards along the coast. Power is still down in parts of the city.

In eastern Afghanistan, floods after unseasonal downpours have left around 56 people dead with about 100 plucked to safety overnight with the help of NATO helicopters, officials said Thursday.

"We can't remember such rain in this season," Ajmal Karimi, an official in the government's department of disaster management told AFP, adding that Afghanistan's rain normally comes in spring.

About 30 people were estimated to have been killed since Wednesday in Panjshir province, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Kabul, Karimi said.

Seven more were killed in Kabul province, where several houses were destroyed. Other deaths were recorded in the provinces of Kapisa, Kunar, Paktia and Parwan, he added.

Torrential rains also lashed Pakistan's North West Frontier Province killing at least 23 people in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

At least 16 people were killed in Landikotal, the main town in the district and the last before the famous Khyber Pass border crossing, a local administration official said.

Eight Afghan refugees were buried when their mud-brick house collapsed. Three other refugees were swept away when a bridge on the Peshawar-Kabul highway near the town collapsed, sending their truck plummeting into a canal.

Two local women and a child were drowned in a rain-swollen river in Landikotal while a couple was reported killed in a house collapse in the town, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Seven other people were also killed when rising water trapped them in their cars in nearby Jamrud town, police said.

Meanwhile monsoon rains claimed around 144 lives over the weekend in western and southern India. The area suffered heavy downpours and flash floods.

earlier related report
Rain kills 23 in Pakistan tribal area
At least 23 people, many of them Afghan refugees, were killed as torrential rains lashed Pakistan's rugged northwestern tribal belt bordering Afghanistan Thursday, officials said.

The deaths in the Khyber tribal district came days after a tropical cyclone ravaged the country's southwest and storms lashed the southern city of Karachi, killing a total of more than 250 people.

Eight refugees were buried when their mud-brick house collapsed in Landikotal, the main town in the district and the last before the famous Khyber Pass border crossing, a local administration official said.

Three other refugees were swept away and killed when a bridge on the Peshawar-Kabul highway near the town collapsed due to the rain and sent their truck plummeting into a canal.

Two local women and a child were drowned in a rain-swollen river in Landikotal while a couple was reported killed in a house collapse in the town, he said on condition of anonymity.

The rain flooded a large part of the town, uprooted power pylons and snapped telephone lines, the official said.

"Water also flooded the local police jail and we had to shift the prisoners to another government building," he added.

The toll rose from 16 to 23 after seven people were killed when rising water swept away two cars they were travelling in nearby Jamrud town, police said.

Senior administration official Rehmat Khan Orakzai said an emergency has been declared in hospitals in the Khyber region and relief efforts were underway.

Heavy rains began in North West Frontier Province early in the morning and damaged houses and crops in the suburbs of the provincial capital Peshawar, they said.

Parts of central Punjab province were also hit by the downpour with several roads flooding in the capital Islamabad.

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