Pakistani flood survivor children sleep outside their makeshift tent set up on the mid-section of a main highway in Camp Karoon, near Nowshera, Pakistan last Thursday. Aid groups and the United Nations have complained that foreign donors have not been quick or generous enough given the scale of the disaster

About 150,000 Pakistanis moved to high ground yesterday as new flood waters from the Indus river submerged towns and villages in the south of the country.

Officials said they expected the flood waters to recede in most of the country in the next few days as the last river torrents empty into the Arabian Sea.

But survivors in the southern province of Sindh may find little left when they return home as houses, roads, bridges and crops were washed away yesterday.

Aid organisations say the province is still highly vulnerable to floods that have raged through Pakistan for three weeks.

Already, 600,000 people are in relief camps set up in Sindh during the flooding over the past month.

The flood is spreading through the rice belt in the north of Sindh district by district, breaking through or flowing over embankments.

Officials said yesterday that more rain was expected in parts of central Punjab, southern Sindh and northwestern Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa provinces over the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, at the close of a hurriedly called two-day meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to spotlight the immediate need for aid, Pakistan's UN ambassador Abdullah Haroon yesterday said the initial outpouring from around 70 countries was "heartening" and "a good beginning". But he stressed that the country would need much more help in the months and years to come.

At the start of the meeting on Thursday, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said donors had given just half of the €360m the UN had appealed for to provide food, shelter and clean water for to up to eight million flood victims over the next three months. He insisted all the money was needed now.

Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said at the end of Thursday's session he was assured the €360m goal was "going to be easily met".

On Thursday, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced that the US, already the biggest donor, would contribute an additional $60m, bringing its total to more than $150m.

how you can help

• Donate in Mace supermarkets or online at www.goal.ie

• www.concern.ie

• www.redcross.ie