He said 43 people were killed as rain and high winds lashed the city on Saturday, while "the bodies of 185 more victims were identified today (Sunday)."

The death toll had now risen to 228, he said, adding some 200 other people were injured, mostly in the suburbs of the port city.

The heavy wind and rain late Saturday wreaked havoc in Karachi, which received 17.2 millimetres of rain within one hour.

Karachi residents angry after a night without electricity to run fans or air conditioners in the sweltering summer heat staged street protests, Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal said.

Many people died in roof collapses and electrocutions before much of the city plunged into darkness after its power grid blacked out.

Anwar Kazmi, an official at the Edhi Foundation, which runs the morgue, said many of the victims came from a cluster of villages with mud houses and other flimsy structures on Karachi's eastern outskirts.

The worst hit area was the impoverished Gadap neighbourhood, where roofs of shanty houses collapsed on families, officials said.

Relatives have identified and claimed all 228 bodies, said Anwar Kazmi, a senior Edhi Foundation official. Among the 185 dead were eight children and 15 women while the rest were men, he said.

A spokesman for the Edhi Trust, which runs welfare homes and a massive network of ambulances, also put the toll at more than 200.

A 22-year-old woman, her son, 2, and daughter, 3, were among the dead in Gadab Town, Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal said earlier.

Some 200 people were injured in the storm, he said.

Ahmed said an emergency had been declared at all government hospitals and doctors and paramedical staff had any leave cancelled. Torrential rain and gale-force winds uprooted trees, power pylons and huge steel billboards causing damage to buildings and vehicles.

Sporadic incidents of rioting were reported from different parts of Karachi where people complained of a night-long power outage.

Work on restoring electricity supply has started and municipal workers are clearing storm-toppled trees, billboards and other debris from streets in the city on the Arabian Sea coast, Kamal said.

Officials said the power supply was restored to most parts of the city Sunday.

The meteorological office has forecast more rain this week.

A relief camp was set up to provide food, medicine and shelter to people whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the eastern outskirts, said Murtaza Baluch, mayor of the neighborhood of mainly farm and factory workers.

Dozens of people died in storms in Karachi last year and choked drains left many streets flooded with rain water, but Kamal said new drains were built, preventing massive flooding this year.