Pakistan issues fresh flood warnings
Warning comes as scores killed and several homes swept away in flash floods in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistani disaster relief officials have issued fresh flood warnings after the death toll from heavy monsoon rains rose to 45 and waters paralysed parts of the largest city, Karachi.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority warned on Sunday that more thunderstorms and heavy rains were expected on Monday and some rivers may flood.
The country’s Meteorological department forecast scattered thunderstorms with isolated heavy rainfall in Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Flash floods caused by monsoon downpours inundated some main roads in the sprawling port city of Karachi and swept away homes in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday.
Officials in Karachi said at least 19 people died in the city as 20 others died in the northwest and six in the southwestern province of Balochistan in the floods over the weekend. Local media put the death toll in 48 hours of floods as high as 68, with 26 killed on Sunday and 42 the day before.
Doctor Seemin Jamali at Karachi’s main Jinnah Hospital told the AFP news agency that most of the deaths there occurred due to electrocution or collapsing roofs and walls.
Army engineers helped relief efforts in Karachi on Sunday where roads and streets were flooded and the city was practically paralysed, an AFP reporter said.
Other areas to be badly hit included five districts of the southwestern Balochistan province and parts of southern Punjab province.
Pakistan has suffered devastating monsoon floods for the last three years, including the worst in its history in 2010 when catastrophic inundations killed almost 1,800 people and affected 21 million.
Scores killed in Afghanistan
Meanwhile, flash floods triggered by days of torrential rain have killed more than 50 people in neighbouring Afghanistan, destroying dozens of houses, officials said.
An estimated 30 people remained missing on Sunday.
Provincial spokesmen in Nangarhar, Kabul, Khost, Laghman and Nuristan said all the floods struck early Saturday.
Flash floods are common in those provinces and all are fed by rivers that eventually intersect in Nangarhar.
In Kabul’s Surobi district, police chief Shaghasi Ahmadi said 34 people were killed in a remote and mountainous area. He said 22 of the bodies from Surobi were later found downstream in Laghman.