The flash floods in Pakistan have left 1,710 people dead, millions homeless and caused a loss of over 43 billion U.S. dollars, the government said Thursday.

According to a survey report by Pakistan's Federal Flood Commission (FFC) released Thursday morning, at least 1,710 people died and another 2,632 were injured as the floodwater in the Indus River finally rushed into the Arabian Sea after ravaging the country for five weeks.

Chairing a federal cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the economic losses inflicted by the floods were estimated at 43 billion dollars, almost equal to the expenditures incurred on the war on terror over the past nine years.

"The national economy is expected to grow four percent this year, but it might end up at 2.5 percent, causing massive job losses and affecting incomes of thousands of families," said Gilani.

Gilani also said that the devastation might also affect revenue collection and increase expenditures, widening the budget deficit and hitting the textile and sugar sectors and in turn affect the balance of payments and external resource stability.

"Growth of the manufacturing sector might fall far below the target of 5.6 percent and inflation might increase to 15-20 percent, more than the 9.5 percent target," the prime minister worried.

Briefing media after the meeting, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said 20 million people had been affected and more than 7.5 million of them had been displaced.

The FFC report reveals that the floods devastated everything at large scale, affecting 11,003 villages, damaging 697,799 houses and washing away the crops at an area of over 1.79 million hectares besides perishing 220,061 cattle heads.

But these figures are inconsistent with those issued by other organizations working in the flood-hit areas as United Nations agencies and Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority estimated that crops of 0.56 million hectares had been washed away and 1.2 million homes destroyed.

The government said about 200 million dollars would be required for recovery and relief work and over 1 billion dollars would be needed to repair key infrastructure in the country.

Gilani also told the cabinet that, according to initial estimates, about 1,000 damaged bridges and over 400 km roads would cost 9 billion rupees (106 million dollars) and the damage to infrastructure, livestock and crops amounted to 350-500 billion rupees (4.1-5.9 billion dollars).

Raza Khursand, Chief of Pakistan Poultry Association, told Xinhua on Thursday that floods had caused a damage of up to 8 billion rupees (94 million dollars) to the poultry industry or 12 to 15 percent in terms of poultry population in the country.

"One-fifth of the irrigation infrastructure, livestock and crops in the country had been destroyed, and Pakistan's electricity department suffered a loss of 17 billion rupees to its installations," he said.

At least 517 out of 968 health facilities, 10,685 schools and railways worth 2.9 billion rupees (34 million dollars) were damaged as well.

Estimates show that overall performance of agriculture, consequently, would be much lower for this year and the year ahead and the loss would increase affects on manufacturing, services and export sectors.

Most families would also face a real risk of income and employment losses which would turn them into the whirlpool of food crises.

Official sources said that the government had been able to collect 23.5 million dollars in the PM's Flood Relief Funds and a total of 953.7 million dollars had been pledged by international donors, out of which 142.47 million has been received so far.

The government has provided essential drugs and medicines to cover the health needs of 2.5 million affected people including 200 Emergency Health Kits, 152 Cholera Kits, 1.8 million Water Purification Tablets, 400,000 Blankets, 7,167 tons of food items and 200,000 tents.

A total of 515,696 acute diarrhea cases, 531,660 acute respiratory infections (ARI), 704,677 skin diseases and 100,970 malaria cases had been reported from the flooded areas, for which 3,806,804 medical consultations had been provided.

"The UN agencies (including UNHCR, UNICEF, OCHA, WHO, WFP) and OIC, IRC are providing major support to Pakistan in its hour of need," said Gilani, adding that the United States, UK, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Germany, China and many countries are extending their resources for rescue and relief to the affected persons.

According to the latest forecast by the meteorological department, the wave of heavy rains is going over and the flood wave is receding towards the Arabian Sea after hitting a major part of country's southern province Sindh.

Health experts warned that the standing water in the areas would be tainted and cause many water-born diseases.