Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari acknowledged Tuesday that the government had responded poorly to the widespread flooding. Zardari’s reputation sank to new lows after he chose to visit Europe as the crisis was unfolding.

“Yes, the situation could be better. Yes, the arrangements could have been made better. Yes, everything could have been better. Alas! If we could have those resources,” he told local aid groups in a meeting. “We have to move forward despite whatever criticism we get.”

Local charities and international agencies have rushed food, water, shelter and medical treatment to the worst-hit areas in the northwest and Punjab and Sindh provinces. But aid agencies and the British government have complained that the international response to the disaster has not been generous enough.

The U.N. appealed last week for $459 million for immediate relief efforts. It has received 40 percent — about $184 million — of that so far, said Maurizio Giuliano, a U.N. spokesman. An additional $43 million has been pledged.

“We would like our pledges to turn into checks as soon as possible because the situation is getting very bad,” Giuliano told The Associated Press.

The World Bank said the funds it is offering are to help Pakistan recover from the floods and would be redirected from ongoing and planned projects in the country. With huge destruction of roads and bridges and crops wiped out in many areas, authorities expect reconstruction to take years and cost billions.

For now, many victims are living in makeshift camps alongside their livestock or in flooded towns and villages.

“The vast geographical extent of the floods and affected populations meant that many people have yet to be reached with the assistance they desperately need,” the U.N. said in a statement. It also said the number of children and breast-feeding mothers affected and rising diarrhea cases “point toward a clear risk of malnutrition among the affected population.”

The floods have killed about 1,500 people and inundated 1.7 million acres (700,000 hectares) of wheat, sugar cane and rice crops, raising the prospect of food shortages in the coming months in the already-poor nation. Prices of food have risen sharply since the floods began.

Authorities in Sindh province said more floods were likely over the next 24 to 48 hours. “The next two days are crucial for the safety of people,” said Sindh’s irrigation minister, Jam Saifullah Dharejo.

Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, said Tuesday that America had committed at least $87 million in aid and expected to give more in the coming days. More U.S. helicopters are expected to join the 19 already dispatched to help ferry stranded Pakistanis and deliver food and other items, U.S. officials said.

Patterson said it was too soon to fully understand the scale of the disaster, including its impact on the Taliban and al-Qaida-led insurgency on Pakistani soil. But she downplayed concerns that Islamist extremists are winning flood victims’ support through their own relief activities.

“To be blunt, I think these stories about extremist organizations being the only players out there are greatly exaggerated,” Patterson told a news conference in Islamabad.

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Associated Press Writer Nahal Toosi in Islamabad contributed to this report.

The flooding is one of several crises that has hit Pakistan since mid-July, including a suicide bombing in the northwest city of Peshawar, a plane crash that killed 152 people in the capital, and a spurt of politically motivated killings that have left dozens dead in the southern city of Karachi.

On Thursday afternoon, a bus plunged into a swollen river in Pakistan’s section of the disputed Kashmir region, killing 20 people and leaving around 20 missing. Eight injured passengers were rescued, government official Chaudhry Imtiaz said.

The government’s overall response has been faulted, especially because Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari left for a visit to Europe as the crises piled up.

As fresh rains fell Thursday, bloated rivers gushed toward southern Sindh province, where hundreds of thousands of the most impoverished Pakistanis live along the water because of its fertility and because it is cheaper than safer ground.

The Indus originates in the Himalayas and travels through the country, emptying into the Arabian Sea. In Sindh, some 150 points along the Indus were considered especially vulnerable, officials said.

Authorities are using 30 boats to help the evacuation of some 500,000 people living along the river banks and have set up 400 relief camps, said Sauleh Farooqi, a top disaster-response official in the province.

“Rains have weakened the protective walls and embankments (along the river), but we are trying to reinforce them,” Farooqi said. “It was difficult to get the people to move from their places because they were not willing to leave.”

In Punjab, the army used boats and helicopters to move stranded villagers to higher ground. Many of the survivors carried what possessions they could, from clothing to pots and pans. Many held their children.

“We are migrants in our home,” said Ahmad Bakhsh, 56, who fled flooded Sanawan town. “Oh God, why have you done this?”

An aerial view from a military helicopter showed that a vast area between Multan and Muzaffargarh cities looked like a large lake, with the occasional dead cow floating by.

Maj. Gen. Nadir Zeb, the region’s army commander, said many people had ignored flood warnings and only realized the danger of the situation when water entered their cities, towns and villages.

“They risked their lives, but we are reaching them,” he said.

In the northwest, which has not seen such flooding since 1929, rescue workers have struggled to deliver aid because of washed-out bridges and roads. Manuel Bessler, the U.N.’s humanitarian chief in Pakistan, said at least 4.2 million people were affected, and that the potential for waterborne diseases was worrisome.

“We are facing a disaster of major proportions,” Bessler told reporters in Geneva by telephone. “Even a week after the disaster we don’t have all the details. Roads are washed away. Bridges are destroyed. Whole areas are completely isolated and only accessible by air.”

Poor access to isolated areas was leading people to “feel abandoned and not taken care of,” Bessler said.

Many flood victims have complained that aid is not reaching them fast enough or at all, expressing anger against the Pakistani government that could grow as the floods spread.

Zardari — ever fearful of militant threats — rarely makes public appearances even when he is in Pakistan. A few months ago, he agreed to constitutional reforms that transferred many of his presidential powers to the prime minister, leaving him more of a figurehead.

Still, victims and rival politicians have pounded Zardari for his trip overseas.

“In the face of such calamity, the people need to feel that their leaders are standing by them,” said an editorial in the News, a newspaper that makes no secret of its dislike of the president.

Zardari aide Farahnaz Ispahani said the president was thinking of Pakistan’s long-term future in tackling the diplomatic front. Zardari’s schedule includes a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who recently caused a fury in Pakistan by accusing it of exporting terror.

“The government must continue its business so that the nation moves forward,” Ispahani said. “This may not play to the galleries, but everything cannot come to a standstill when there is a disaster, especially in a parliamentary democracy with a prime minister and Cabinet in place.”

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Associated Press writers Khalid Tanveer in Kot Addu, Zarar Khan in Islamabad, and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva contributed to this report.

The latest unrest came after Raza Haider, a provincial lawmaker, was shot dead along with his bodyguard in a mosque while preparing to offer prayers Monday in Nazimabad area.

Haider was a member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the political party that runs the city and represents mainly descendants of Urdu-speaking migrants from India who settled in Pakistan when it was created in 1947.

The MQM’s main rival is the Awami National Party, a secular nationalist party whose main power center is Pakistan’s northwest and whose base is the ethnic Pashtun community living in Karachi.

Within hours of Haider’s assassination, gangs torched buildings in Karachi and gunfire erupted in several parts of the city. Many of the dead were killed in targeted, execution-style attacks, authorities said. An investigation had been ordered into who was behind the attacks.

Independent analysts say followers of all political parties in Karachi are heavily involved in criminal activities such as protection rackets and illegal land dealings. In certain neighborhoods, armed men linked to political parties stand guard at checkpoints.

While violence is still common, the city was far more dangerous in the 1980s and 1990s when there were regular outbreaks of political and ethnic slayings that left dozens dead each week.

Police surgeon Hamid Parhiar said that 45 people were killed and 93 people had been wounded, citing data from state-run hospitals in the city.

Sindh province spokesman Jamil Soomro said at least 10 people were arrested, and police and Army Rangers were dispatched throughout the city to impose order. But gunfire could still be heard Tuesday morning, and fires were still being set in some areas.

Schools and colleges in Karachi and other urban centers in the surrounding province were ordered to stay closed by the government Tuesday.

Officials did not say who was to blame for the violence.

“It is very sad, and we believe that it is the work of those forces who want to destabilize the elected government,” Soomro said.