Thousands of people fled today from the southern Pakistani town of Thatta after the swollen Indus river burst its banks and authorities ordered an evacuation. The United Nations said,fresh flooding has sent a million people fleeing from their homes in the south in the past 48 hours. The death toll from the floods, triggered by unusually heavy monsoon downpours over the upper Indus basin a month ago, was expected to rise significantly as more bodies were found while many people were missing. Flood water are beginning to recede across most of the country as the water flows downstream, but high tides in the Arabian Sea meant they still posed a threat to towns in Sindh province such as Thatta, 70 km east of Karachi. However, the southern business hub of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is far away from the flood zone.