Incessant rain over six days flooded some 5,000 villages in the country's Sindh province, they said.

Officials said about 400,000 people have been affected in the worst-hit areas of Badin, Thatta, Tharparkar, Larkana and Shikarpur.

Torrential rains submerged several low-lying areas and disrupted power supplies and communications in the port city of Karachi, home to 12 million people and the capital of Sindh province.

"It is certainly the worst since 1994," provincial government spokesman Salahuddin Haider told AFP.

The government is considering declaring Badin and other areas disaster zones, which would exempt farmers from taxes and allow concessions in the repayment of agriculture loans, he said.

According to the meteorological department, Karachi recorded 79 millimeters (3.1 inches) of rain on Monday, which completely paralysed life in the country's commercial hub.

Witnesses said many people spent the night in their offices or in hotels as several key roads were knee-deep in water.

"It took me four hours to cover a distance of two kilometers on the busy Sharae Faisal road. It was so frustrating that I parked my car on one side of the road and took a nap," said banker Mohammad Saeed.

Rescue workers said six people died in Karachi on Monday, and the death toll across the province over the past six days has now gone up to 85.

The government has already deployed hundreds of army personnel to conduct rescue operations in rural Sindh where officials said some 33,000 houses have been "fully or partially damaged."

Rains and floods have also affected crops in Badin and Shikarpur districts, where some 9,000 cattle have perished, officials said.

Military planes continued to drop packets of food to people in marooned villages.

Heavy rains also lashed central Punjab province and North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan.

At least 70 villages have been inundated in the Muzaffargarh, Leiah and Rajanpur districts of Punjab, officials said adding that more than 10,000 people had been affected.

The director of the meteorological office in Islamabad, Anjum Bari allayed fears in Karachi that a cyclone was heading towards the port city and the coastal belt of Sindh.

"There is no possibility of any hurricane or cyclone," he told AFP.

He said an intense low pressure area was now passing through Sindh province, causing heavy rains and in some places strong winds of between 25 and 35 miles an hour.

"We have warned fishermen and other people with small boats to avoid going deep as the sea may become rough," he added.

Bari said the weather in Sindh was likely to improve over the next 24 to 36 hours.

TERRA.WIRE