Peshawar:
Rescuers in flooded Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Districts itched through mud and dirt on Saturday when flash floods detached by days of heavy monsoon drains killed at least 344 people in the province within 48 hours, officials said.
National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) confirmed that 324 of the deaths were reported in KP, with dozens more killed in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. At least 137 people were injured when houses collapsed, and torrents of water swept residents, livestock and vehicles.
Officials said the extent of the destruction forced the provincial government to declare six districts-buns, Bajaur, SWAT, Shangla, Mansehra and Battagtagram disaster hit. Thousands of homes were destroyed, and key roads, including bridges and link routes, were washed away, such as complicated rescue and relief operations.
“Heavy rainfall, landslides and leached roads inhibit the rescue efforts seriously, especially the transport of heavy machinery and ambulances,” said Bilal Ahmed Faizi, spokesman for KP’s rescue agent.
“In some areas, workers are forced to walk long distances to reach disaster pages,” he said. “They try to evacuate the survivors but very few people move because of the death of their relatives or loved ones being caught in the waste.”
Buners District’s Deputy Commissioner Kashif Qayum Khan also said that rescuers were forced to find new ways to reach remote areas. “Many more people can still be caught during the waste that local residents can’t clear manually,” Khan told AFP.
Nearly 2,000 rescue staff have been deployed, but officials warned that many victims can still be caught under rubble in remote villages.
In the Shangla district, officials confirmed 37 deaths where more people are still missing. Torrential floods, lightning strikes and landslides left hundreds of wounded, flattened houses and displaced whole communities.
Eleven more people were killed in AJK, and another nine in GB, officials said. Five more were killed when a local government helicopter crashed due to bad weather during an emergency mission in the Bajaur District on Friday.
The meteorological department has also released a strong rain alarm for northwestern regions and encourages people to take “precautions”.
Syed Muhammad Tayyab Shah from NDMA told AFP that this year’s Monsun season began earlier than usual and was expected to end later. It would also increase in intensity over the next two weeks, he added.
In Buner, an AFP journalist saw three excavators that cleared mud and wood from the completely flattened place, while dozens of rescuers and residents also dug through the waste.
Other cleared heavy cuts with their hands and with shovels. “People are still under the waste … Those who were swept away are searched for downstream,” resident Abdul Khan said.
Floodwaters also destroyed livestock, shops and vehicles, while key roads including alpuria – bisham, alpuri – puran and alpuri – chakesar were badly damaged. Although some were temporarily opened again on Saturday, access to remote areas remains cut off.
Residents talked about funerals held in broken villages where the survivors continue to search through rubble by hand. “I helped pick up the bodies of children I learned,” said Saifullah Khan, a school teacher in Buner. “The trauma is unbearable.”
Another villager in Buner told AFP residents who continued to search through the rubble overnight.
“The whole area is rolling from in-depth trauma,” said 32-year-old schoolteacher Saifullah Khan. “I help pick up the bodies of the children I learned, I still wonder what kind of trial of nature has imposed on these children,” he said.
NDMA said stormy monsoon rain over Pakistan has killed more than 650 people this season, with 905 wounded. The agency warned that the precipitation that began earlier than usual this year is expected to continue with greater intensity over the next two weeks.
Monsoon flooding in South Asia brings much of the region’s annual rainfall, important to agriculture, but devastating when extreme. Pakistan, among the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change, have been exposed to ever more frequent and intense weather events. By 2022, floods immersed one -third of the country, killing about 1,700 people.
Provincial authorities said relief operations are underway where heavy equipment is moved to clear roads and restore connection. The PDMA chairman visited Shangla on Saturday and called on officials to accelerate assistance and rehabilitation.
The KP Chief Minister is expected to visit flood-affected areas on Sunday to undergo damage and provide further measures.
The heavy rainfall that has knocked Pakistan since the beginning of the summer monks, described as “unusual” by the authorities, have killed more than 650 people by more than 905 injured.
In July, Punjab recorded 73 percent more rainfall than the previous year and more deaths than in the whole of the former Monsun.
Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries towards the effects of climate change and struggling with extreme weather events with increasing frequency. Monsoon floods in 2022 immersed one -third of the country, killing about 1,700 people.
(With additional input from agencies)
