Shahdadkot, Pakistan (CNN) -- Shahdadkot's half-million people frantically tried to flee their homes Saturday as a wall of water threatened to burst mud berms and drown the entire city in Pakistan's Sindh province.
Three weeks into the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history, people were still desperate to escape as a second wave of monsoon floodwaters surged southward. More than 1,500 people have died and 20 million lives have been disrupted.
Already, huge parts of Shahdadkot look like a lake, with the roofs of some houses barely above water. Authorities advised the entire population to evacuate.
Residents climbed onto heaps of belongings piled high in the beds of rickety trucks, packed buses, auto-rickshaws and carts to get out of town before the water came. Many did not know where they were going -- just that they had to reach drier ground.
But there weren't enough vehicles for a mass evacuation.
Sunat Magsi and her 100-strong extended family lost their nine mud huts to the raging torrents. They sought shelter in an abandoned house, but even there the water was creeping higher. They only had one donkey and one cart left. CNN
