At least 46 people have been killed and dozens have been injured in Pakistan’s nearly a week of heavy monsoon rains and flash floods, according to officials.
The government made the death toll public on Monday, claiming that several days of unusually strong downpours had contributed.
According to the National Disaster Management Authority and provincial emergency officials, there were 22 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan, 13 in the eastern province of Punjab, seven in Sindh in the south, and four in Balochistan in the southwest.
The deputy director of Pakistan’s meteorological department, Irfan Virk, told The Associated Press that “we are anticipating above-normal rains during the monsoon season,” and that precautionary measures have been issued.
Forecasters cannot prevent extreme weather like the devastating floods of 2022, according to Virk.
1, 737 people were killed and largely destroyed by subsequent severe rains that flooded a third of the nation.
13 tourists from a family of 17 who were swept away on Friday are among the victims from the past week. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the other four family members were saved from the flooded Swat River.
According to Bilal Faizi, a provincial emergency service spokesman, divers continued searching for the remaining victim on Monday after finding 12 bodies from the family.
What many people described as a slow response by emergency services was the subject of widespread condemnation online.
The National Disaster Management Authority had warned of potential dangers on Sunday and advised people against crossing rivers and streams.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply