Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are in urgent need of shelter, food and clean water.

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Pakistan has received nearly 190 per cent more rain than the 30-year average in the quarter through August this year, totalling 390.7 mm. Sindh province, with a population of 50 million, was the hardest hit, getting 466 per cent more rain than the 30-year average.

Major rivers, the Indus and the Kabul have reached “high to very high flood” levels that were likely to continue rising over the following 24 hours, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.

It said 480,030 displaced persons were transferred to refugee camps.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari accompanied diplomats from 20 countries on a flight over the flooded regions which Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said comprised a third of the country.

International aid agencies have asked for a relaxation on imports of food from Pakistan’s old rival and neighbour India, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said.

“It will take a long time to bring the situation under control,” Rehman said, adding that clean drinking water was scarce and “diseases are spreading”.

Villager Fayyaz Ali, 27, in Sindh’s hard-hit Shikarpur district, managed to get his family to safety but had little hope of saving his small home.

“The house is going to fall at any moment. It’s inundated,” Ali said as he sat on higher ground.

Like many others, Ali said he had yet to receive any help.

Main roads running above the fields have become refuges, with people, together with their belongings and farm animals, seeking shelter from the sun and rain under makeshift plastic tenting.

The World Health Organisation said over 6.4 million people were in dire need of humanitarian aid.

“Access to health facilities, healthcare workers and essential medicines and medical supplies remain the main health challenges for now,” WHO said in a statement.

Some 888 health facilities have been damaged, it added.

Army helicopters have been plucking stranded families from rooftops and patches of dry land and dropping food in inaccessible areas, mainly in northern and southwestern Pakistan.

Colossal volumes of water are pouring into the Indus river, spilling out along its length and leaving vast tracks of land submerged.

Flash floods have swept away homes, businesses, infrastructure and crops. The government says 33 million people, or 15 per cent of the 220 million population, have been affected.

The floods have also washed away standing and stored crops that officials say will likely lead to a food shortage, with prices of edible items surging in a South Asian country already suffering from 24.9 per cent inflation.

General Akhtar Nawaz, chief of the national disaster agency, said more than two million acres (809,371 hectares) of agricultural land have been flooded.

“The rice crop has been washed away,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told reporters after visiting northern Pakistan. “Fruit and vegetables are gone.”

He said floodwaters had swept away 700,000 livestock.

Early estimates have put the flood damage at more than $US10 billion, the government has said, appealing to the world to help it deal with what it has called a man-made climate catastrophe.