QUETTA/LAHORE/PESHAWAR: Torrential rains accompanied by flash floods have killed at least 20 people over the last two days in northwestern and southwestern Pakistan, officials and local media reported on Saturday.
Most of the fatalities have been reported from the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and the southwestern Balochistan provinces, where heavy rainfall and flash flooding have isolated entire villages, damaged roads and caused homes to collapse.
The current death toll includes at least eight children, according to local health officials.
Local television channels showed gushing rainwater inundating homes — with residents taking refuge on rooftops — in Quetta, Zhob, Tank, Pishin, Loralai, Chaman, Chagai, Mastung and other districts.
Accompanied by thunder and hailstorms, heavy rainfall caused several homes to collapse in the Mastung, Khyber Agency, Chagai and Zhob districts, killing 12 people and injuring scores of others.
Grabbing whatever they could salvage, local residents in effected areas — including women and children — could be seen wading through knee-deep water in search of higher ground.
Dozens of mud homes have been entirely washed away by surging flash floods, forcing local administrators in flood-hit districts to direct residents to schools and other government buildings.
Torrential rain coupled with high winds uprooted trees and electricity towers in affected areas, causing wide-ranging power outages, a local TV channel reported.
The intermittent heavy rain inundated many areas of Balochistan and paralysed life in the province. A house caved in due to heavy rain in the Sherani district. As a result, five members of a family were killed. In Loralai, the roof of a primary school collapsed. Three students were injured in the incident.
In Pashin, five people were buried under the debris of a house, which collapsed during rain. Flood in Nushki swept away eight houses and washed several roads.
A house collapsed in the Tank area of KP. A child was killed and five people were seriously injured in this incident. Two women were killed in the Karor Lal Esan area of Punjab when their house caved-in.
A man died when lightening hit him in Sarona area of Wadh Tehsil in the Khuzdar District. A six-year-old girl drowned in a water channel in the Salmanabad area in Rawalpindi.
At least three children were killed and four others were injured when the roof of a house collapsed due to torrential rains in the Bara area of Khyber Agency.
Levies officials said that the roof of a house came down in the Aka Khel area of Bara in Khyber Agency, as heavy rains lashed the tribal agency.
Three children died in the incident and people were seriously wounded.
The Pakistan Metrological Office, for its part, has issued a flood warning for several parts of the KP province, warning that the rainy spell would likely go on for another two days.
The authorities fear outbreaks of disease in flood-hit areas, where marooned residents have been forced to drink rainwater and eat unhygienic food.
Pakistan experienced massive flooding in 2010 and 2011, which inundated an estimated one fifth of the country and caused some 2,000 deaths.
And in 2014, over 240 people were killed in Pakistan by torrential rainfall coupled with flash floods.
