Flash floods kill 33 in northern Pakistan

Flash floods caused by torrential monsoon rains have killed at least 33 people in northern Pakistan, the majority from a village near the border with Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.

The rains began late Saturday and were concentrated mainly in the northwestern province of Khybher Pakthunkwa, which has been badly affected by flooding in recent years that some scientists have linked to climate change.

The worst hit district was Chitral, on the country’s northwest border, where flood waters swept away a mosque, dozens of houses and army post in the remote village of Ursoon, district mayor Maghfirat Shah told AFP.



Thirty-one people were killed in the village, and at least eight of the dead are thought to be soldiers.
A statement issued by the provincial disaster management authority said 82 houses were affected by the waters, and efforts were underway to provide food and relief items to the villagers.

Another senior local official, Osama Waraich, said that the bodies of eight of the victims from Ursoon had been found on the Afghan side of the border.

Separately, two Chinese engineers were killed and five Pakistani workers injured when the heavy rains caused the roof of a construction site to collapse at Tarbela Dam, spokesman for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority Latifur Rehman said.

In April rains and landslides killed 127 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Gilgit-Baltistan region and Pakistani Kashmir.

Poorly built homes across the country, particularly in rural areas, are susceptible to collapse during the annual spring and monsoon rains in July-August, which are often heavy.

Severe weather in recent years has killed hundreds and destroyed huge tracts of prime farmland.

During the rainy season last summer, torrential downpours and flooding killed 81 people and affected almost 300,000 people across the country.

The worst flooding in recent times occurred in 2010 and covered almost a fifth of the country’s total land mass. Nearly 2,000 people were killed and 20 million affected.

Rapid deforestation brought about by decades of illegal logging in the country’s north and the growth of farming along the river Indus in the south is believed by experts to have exacerbated the effects of the annual floods.

Energy-starved Pakistan relies on a multitude of dams and barrages to prevent Himalayan rivers from flooding and help meet its power needs, but some academics believe the slowing of rivers due to the structures mean that silt accumulates, decreasing their capacity.

A research paper commission by conservation group WWF and published in 2000 looked at various countries, and warned of similar consequences. It noted the drainage of wetlands as well as deforestation associated with dams led to a loss of natural ‘sponges’ to absorb flood waters during rainy season.