PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – Police say the heavy monsoon rains lashing northern Pakistan have worsened flooding there, causing homes to collapse and killing another 16 people.
Advertisement
In Chitral in the northwest, roads, bridges and crops were badly damaged, with more than a quarter of a million affected, the EU’s humanitarian office said.
Friday’s statement by the National Disaster Management Authority says seven of the deaths were reported in flood-hit areas in the southwestern Baluchistan province while three people died in the eastern Punjab province.
“Some villages have been cut off from the rest of the district”, said Shah Fahad Ali Khan, 27, a university lecturer living in Zargrandeh, a village in Chitral.
The military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said that soldiers continued flood relief and rescue operations in Chitral, Gilgit-Baltistan and southern Punjab.
Deadly flooding is common in Pakistan’s monsoon season, which runs from June to September.
Advertisement
It prompted the Pakistani government to dispatch troops there to rescue those trapped by the flooding. “An overall population of 250,000 has been affected due to floods“, he said.At least eight members of the same family were killed on Friday night in Chitral when their house was swept away in the gushing floodwaters, an official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said. Four medical camps have been established at Shiger, Khaplu and Hunza, where cooked food is being provided to families in tents.
