Islamabad: Heavy monsoon rains have triggered landslides and flash floods across northern Pakistan, leaving at least 169 people dead in the last 24 hours, national and local officials said Friday
The majority of the deaths, 150, were recorded in mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
Nine more people were killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while five died in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, it said.
The majority of those killed have died in flash floods and collapsing houses.
Five others, including two pilots, were killed when a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government helicopter crashed due to bad weather during a mission to deliver relief goods, the chief minister of the province, Ali Amin Gandapur, said in a statement.
The provincial government has declared the severely affected mountainous districts of Buner, Bajaur, Mansehra and Battagram as disaster-hit areas.
The meteorological department has issued a heavy rain alert for the northwest, urging people to avoid “unnecessary exposure to vulnerable areas.”
The monsoon season brings South Asia about three-quarters of its annual rainfall, vital for agriculture and food security, but it also brings destruction.
Landslides and flash floods are common during the season, which usually begins in June and eases by the end of September.
Scientists say that climate change has made weather events around the world more extreme and more frequent.
In 2022, monsoon floods submerged a third of the country and killed 1,700 people.
