Military rescue workers were rushing to evacuate families in Sindh province, where disaster officials were on red alert for a major deluge that could burst the banks of the swollen Indus River. Pakistanis desperate to get out of flooded villages threw themselves at helicopters on Saturday as heavy rain was expected to intensify both suffering and anger with the government.

President Asif Ali Zardari may have made the biggest political mistake of his career by leaving for visits to Paris and London during the worst floods in 80 years. Responding to criticism of his absence, Zardari said the prime minister was capable of dealing with the crisis.

“There is a chief executive at home ... The Parliament is in session, the Senate is in session, it’s the prime minister’s responsibility and he’s fulfilling his responsibility,” Zardari told the BBC’s Newsnight.

Fresh downpours hammered Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province where some helicopter services ferrying aid were suspended until the bad weather subsided, although forecasters said there would be at least two days more rain.

“The situation is bad, particularly in the Swat Valley, and we have advised people in low-lying areas to vacate their homes as river water levels are rising,” said Adnan Ahmed, a provincial official. The UN’s special envoy dispatched to help with the floods cancelled a flight to stricken areas, and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani also postponed his trip for a day because of the rains.

Those uprooted from their homes in Sindh have been moved to relief shelters in government buildings, schools and tents, but many families in low-lying areas resisted evacuation, said irrigation minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo.

“I didn’t want to leave but when the water levels got high and we were hungry and couldn’t cook anything... my brother told me we should leave,” said Najma Bibi, 30, as she searched for food with her eight-year-old son.

The UN estimates at least 1,600 people have been killed by the floods that have ravaged the largely impoverished, insurgency-hit country, sweeping away entire villages. In Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, head of flood relief operations Maj. Gen. Ghayoor Mehmood has said some 1,400 people have been killed, with 213 still missing. Flooding has spread to Indian-held Kashmir, where at least 132 people have died and hundreds were missing.

Over 250 people were missing, police said, after floodwaters left a trail of destruction on Friday in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, flattening buildings, overturning vehicles, toppling utility poles and leaving a sea of mud.

“We have at least 132 people dead and over 250 people missing,” a police official said. The police official said that over 150 people were missing in Choglumsar, the worst-hit village on the outskirts of Leh town.

India’s NDTV reported that at least 400 people were missing.

Rescuers were also looking for more than 100 laborers missing from Shyong village, he said.

At least 400 people were reported injured in the floods, triggered by a cloudburst which struck without warning in the region which shares a sensitive border with China and has a large Indian military presence.

Indian Air Force planes made five sorties, flying in medicines, doctors and food for victims of the devastation, an official spokesman said. A powerful six-foot wall of water, mud and sand smashed into the area as people slept early on Friday, making it look “like it was bombed,” R.S. Raina, who works for state broadcaster Doordarshan in Leh, said.

Shops in a newly built market in Leh were transformed into temporary mortuaries where rescuers laid out bodies.  “Unclaimed bodies are piling and it is becoming a major problem to preserve them,” a police officer said. “Those bodies which are claimed are immediately cremated or buried.”

Rescuers waded through knee-deep mud in a bid to reach victims trapped in collapsed buildings.

“Our immediate priority is to look for survivors,” said state tourism minister Nawang Rigzin Jora, who was directing rescue efforts in Leh.

Thousands were left homeless in the disaster, which came as India’s neighbor Pakistan was swamped by its worst floods in 80 years. Some parts of Pakistan’s Punjab province are under six feet of water, affecting nearly two million people, a senior crisis management official said.

“The scale of the needs is absolutely daunting,” Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said on Friday.

More than 252,000 homes are thought to have been damaged or destroyed across Pakistan and 1.38 million acres of crop land flooded, and it could take weeks before electricity is fully restored.

The flooding has threatened electricity generation plants, forcing units to shut down in a country already suffering a crippling energy crisis.

The United States has pledged a total of $35 million in aid, with military helicopter relief missions traveling into the worst-hit regions. Australia on Saturday doubled its aid pledge to $9.2 million.

In Afghanistan, there were reports of flooding in the province of Wardak, where 12 people were confirmed dead, and in Nuristan province, said Abdul Mateen Idrak, said National Disaster Management Authority.