At the very least 194 individuals have died within the final 24 hours in heavy monsoon floods and landslides in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Many of the deaths, 180, had been recorded by catastrophe authorities within the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in north-west Pakistan. At the very least 30 properties had been destroyed and a rescue helicopter crashed throughout operations, killing its 5 crew.
9 extra individuals had been killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, whereas 5 died within the northern Gilgit-Baltistan area, it stated.
Authorities forecasters stated heavy rainfall was anticipated till 21 August within the northwest of the nation, the place a number of areas have been declared catastrophe zones.
In Buner, one survivor advised AFP the floods arrived like “doomsday”.
“I heard a loud noise as if the mountain was sliding. I rushed exterior and noticed your entire space shaking, prefer it was the tip of the world,” stated Azizullah.
“The bottom was trembling because of the pressure of the water, and it felt like dying was staring me within the face.”
The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gadapur, stated that the M-17 helicopter crashed resulting from unhealthy climate whereas flying to Bajaur, a area bordering Afghanistan.
In Bajaur, a crowd amassed round an excavator trawling a mud-soaked hill, AFP photographs confirmed. Funeral prayers started in a paddock close by, with individuals grieving in entrance of a number of our bodies coated by blankets.
Within the Indian-administered a part of Kashmir, rescuers pulled our bodies from mud and rubble on Friday after a flood crashed by way of a Himalayan village, killing no less than 60 individuals and washing away dozens extra.
Monsoon rains between June and September ship about three-quarters of South Asia’s annual rainfall. Landslides and flooding are widespread and than 300 individuals have died on this 12 months’s season.
In July, Punjab, dwelling to almost half of Pakistan’s 255 million individuals, recorded 73% extra rainfall than the earlier 12 months and extra deaths than in your entire earlier monsoon.
Scientists say that local weather change has made climate occasions extra excessive and extra frequent.
