"There have been lot of cases of heat-stroke and dehydration reported from the 6,000 hospitals and health units we have in the province," a Punjab health official said.

Health officials in the southern province of Sindh said there had been about 10 deaths over the past 24 hours taking the province's toll of fatalities due to the heat to about 55.

The highest temperature recorded during the heat wave was in Jacobabad in Sindh, which saw the mercury hit 52 degrees Celsius (125.6 Fahrenheit) last Friday, a provincial official said.

A weather official said temperatures had eased in about a third of the area hit by the heat wave but the high temperatures would persist elsewhere for at least another two days.

June and July are traditionally Pakistan's hottest months before seasonal rains cools things off a bit before the mild autumn.

Hot weather in neighbouring Afghanistan had melted snow across the Hindu Kush mountains, swelling rivers there and in northwest Pakistan where about 300 families have been forced from their homes by floods, a military official said.