BUNER, Pakistan (AP) — Rescuers in northwest Pakistan pulled 63 more bodies overnight from homes flattened by landslides and flash floods, raising the death toll from rain-related incidents to at least 220, officials said Saturday.
Pakistan has received above-normal rains, which experts link to climate change, leading to floods and mudslides that, with the newly reported fatalities, have killed about 541 people since June 2, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
Hundreds of rescue workers are still searching for survivors in Buner, one of several districts hit in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where torrential rains and cloudbursts triggered massive flooding on Friday, said Mohammad Suhail, a spokesman for the emergency services. Dozens of homes were swept away.
First responders have been trying to recover bodies in the worst-hit villages of Pir Baba and Malik Pura, where most people died on Friday, according to Kashif Qayyum, a deputy commissioner in Bunar.
Mohammad Khan, 53, a Pir Baba resident, said people had no time to escape. “We do not know from where the floodwater came, but it came so fast that many could not leave their homes,” he said.
Most of the victims died before reaching the hospital, said Mohammad Tariq, a medical doctor at a government hospital in Buner. “Many among the dead were children and men, while women were away in the hills collecting firewood and grazing cattle,” he said.
According to the provincial disaster management authority, at least 351 people have died in rain-related incidents this week across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Nearly 300 kilometers (about 186 miles) away, floods in Indian-controlled Kashmir have taken dozens of lives and driven hundreds from their homes in recent days.
Such cloudbursts are increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions and Pakistan’s northern areas, and experts have said climate change is a contributing factor.
Pakistani officials said rescuers since Thursday have evacuated more than 3,500 tourists trapped in flood-hit areas across the country.
Many tourists have ignored government warnings that urged people to avoid flood-hit regions in the northern and northwestern regions, fearing more landslides and flash floods.
In 2022, Pakistan witnessed the worst monsoon season that killed more than 1,700 people and caused an estimated $40 billion in damage.
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Associated Press writer Riaz Khan contributed to this story from Peshawar, Pakistan
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