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Floods kill 100 people in Pakistan as monsoon hits

At least 100 people have been killed by rivers bursting their banks in north-west Pakistan as the country was hit by its worst floods for 80 years.

Rob Crilly in Islamabad and Ashfaq Yusufzai in Peshawar
Published: 4:01PM BST 29 Jul 2010

Floodwater destroyed a dam and washed away countless bridges in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, leaving an estimated 400,000 people stranded, after two days of monsoon rains. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the regional information minister, said the deluge made it difficult to reach people in need of shelter and clean drinking water.

"A rescue operation using helicopters cannot be conducted due to the bad weather, while there are only 48 rescue boats available for rescue," he said. The province's deputy health director, Ali Khan, added that he feared there may be as many as 500 casualties. Medical workers had launched a programmed to immunise people against cholera and typhoid, he said.

Ten of the victims died when their homes collapsed in the provincial capital Peshawar. The latest casualties follow flash floods in the south-western Balochistan province last week, which killed 70 and also uprooted nearly 100,000 people. Flooding is common in Pakistan at this time of the year with the country in the grip of monsoon season.

However, the past 36 hours has seen as much as 300mm fall in some areas – the highest figure recorded in 35 years. Qamar Zaman, meteorological department commissioner, said the rain would be short-lived. "We expect more rains in the next 24 hours focused on Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, but by tomorrow afternoon the intensity will go away." Investigators believe bad weather was also a factor in Wednesday's crash of AirBlue flight 202 in Islamabad, which killed all 152 people on board.

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Rivers burst their banks during deadly monsoon rains lashing Pakistan, washing away streets, battering a dam and submerging thousands of homes. The hardest hit region was the northwest, where at least 60 people died and hundreds of thousands were stranded in the region's worst flooding in decades.




People were forced to trudge through knee-deep water in some streets in the Swat Valley. A newly constructed part of a dam in the
Charsadda district collapsed, while the UN said it had reports that 5,000 homes were underwater in that area.




At least 10 of 60 people reported dead in the previous 24 hours died near Peshawar when their homes crumbled

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Dozens of people were reported missing, including at least nine Chinese construction workers in the Kohistan area. Some 200 other Chinese workers were trapped amid the downpour, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, the northwest province. He said it was the worst floods in the region since 1929 and estimated 400,000 people were stranded in various villages.




"A rescue operation using helicopters cannot be conducted due to the bad weather, while there are only 48 rescue boats
available for rescue," he said, noting weather forecasts predict more rain over the next 24 hours.




Monsoon season often leads to widespread flooding in Pakistan, imperiling residents in low-lying villages.
The poorest residents are often the ones who live in the most flood-prone areas because they can't afford safer land.

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More than 60 people were killed in Malakand alone while Swat itself was cut off as
heavy rains swept away several bridges and disrupted communications.




The floods came as the country mourned the death of 152 people in a plane crash.
The crash near Islamabad on Tuesday was also caused by bad weather, officials said as investigations continued.




Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province received between 250 mm and 300 mm of rain in the past 36 hours -
the highest figure recorded in the last 35 years, Pakistan's meteorological department commissioner Qamar Zaman said.

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A man carries melons as he wades through a flooded street after heavy rains in Peshawar.




Residents and shopkeepers wade through a flooded street with their belongings after heavy rains in Peshawar.




A Pakistani girl looks out from her damaged mud house in a flood-hit area of Nowshera.

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A Pakistani woman sits with her belongings on a roadside as her house is flooded in Nowshera.







Residents move into a safe place from a flooded village near Nowshera.

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A fruit vendor takes shelter under his cart during heavy rainfall in Jammu, India.




An Indian woman sows rice seedlings on farmland on the outskirts of Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar.
With the arrival of monsoon rains, farming activity has resumed in the paddy fields.




A municipal worker uses an anti-malaria fumigation spray machine in Mumbai, India.
Accumulated water offers a breeding ground for mosquitoes leading to a wider spread of malaria.

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Children swim in a water-logged street in Kolkata, India.




Indian farmers plant paddy seedlings in a field on the outskirts of Hyderabad. India, the second-biggest producer of rice,
wheat and sugar, may have harvests because of good rainfall, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said.




An Indian farm labourers plants rice seedlings in a field near Dholka, some 30kms from Ahmedabad. Indian farmers planted rice across 7.23 million hectares,
up 5.4 percent from a year earlier, as the monsoon hit parts of India, nine days ahead of normal.

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Children play on a flooded street in Kolkata.




Children enjoy the monsoon rain in Mayong, a village about 45 km from Guwahati, northeast India.




Indian police and civilians take shelter at a bus terminal in Srinagar, Kashmir.

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Commuters ride through a waterlogged street in the rain in Jammu, India.




People run in the rain in Jammu, India.




Monsoon clouds hover over workers at a Metro rail construction site in New Delhi.

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A commuter wears a plastic bag over his head as he rides his scooter through a waterlogged street following a downpour in Amritsar.




A woman pushes a wheelchair carrying her disabled daughter as they cross a flooded street in Lahore, Pakistan.




People wade through flood waters in Lahore.

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Commuters walk along a flooded road in Lahore.




A man pushes a bicycle along a flooded street after heavy monsoon rains in Lahore.




A man pushes his handcart through a flooded street in Lahore.

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A vendor pushes his cart with children through a flooded street after heavy monsoon rainfall in Lahore.




Commuters travel during rain in Karachi, Pakistan.




Heavy vehicles line up in a traffic jam on Prithvi Highway near Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal,
after a landslide caused by monsoon rains.

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Priests sit in utensils filled with water as they perform rituals for the arrival of monsoon rains in Ahmadabad, India, on June 29.




Rajaram Das, a Sadhu or a Hindu holyman, performs yoga as part of a ritual to appease Indra, the Hindu rain god,
for rain in a dry pond in the northern Indian city of Mathura, on June 25.

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A street is inundated in northwest Pakistan's Nasir-Bagh, on July 30, 2010. At least 420 people were killed in the flood-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan, said the Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik on Friday. (Xinhua/Umar Qayyum)




People migrate with their belongings as their houses were flooded following heavy monsoon rains in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar, on July 30, 2010. At least 420 people were killed in the flood-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan, said the Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik on Friday. (Xinhua/Umar Qayyum)




People migrate as their houses were flooded following heavy monsoon rains in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar, on July 30, 2010. At least 420 people were killed in the flood-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan, said the Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik on Friday.
(Xinhua/Saeed Ahmad)

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More than 1,000 killed in Pakistani floods

By Augustine Anthony

ISLAMABAD | Sun Aug 1, 2010 9:56am EDT

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Floods caused by a week of heavy rain have killed more than 1,000 people in Pakistan's northwest and rescuers battled on Sunday to distribute relief to tens of thousands of people trapped. A westerly weather system moving in from Iran and Afghanistan, combined with heavy monsoon rain, caused the worst floods on record in Pakistan in the past week, with the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa the worst hit.

Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told Pakistani media more than 1,000 people had been killed and the toll could be even higher. In Afghanistan, dozens of people were killed and thousands were rescued after flash floods in the northeast. "The level of devastation is so widespread, so large, it is quite possible that in many areas there are damages, there are deaths which may not have been reported," army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told reporters late on Saturday.

More than 30,000 Pakistani army troops have rescued over 19,000 people from the marooned areas but officials conceded some might still be trapped and awaiting help in remote areas including Kohistan, Nowshera, Dir and in the Swat valley.

DANGER OF DISEASE

"Virtually no bridge has been left in Swat. All major and minor bridges have gone, destroyed completely," Abbas said of the valley which has borne the brunt of the floods. A Reuters photographer in Nowshera on Sunday saw two bodies lying on the ground and dead animals in several places, as groups of people waded through floodwaters to dry land. Aid agencies said more than 500,000 people were affected by flash floods and landslides in the northwest.

"There is now a real danger of the spread of water-borne diseases like diarrhea, asthma, skin allergies and perhaps cholera in these areas," Shaharyar Bangash, World Vision Pakistan's programs manager, said in a statement. The U.S. embassy in Islamabad said it was providing immediate aid, including two water filtration units and more than 50,000 meals, for affected areas.

It also provided helicopters on Friday which helped rescue 400 people from flooded areas. The meteorological department has forecast more rain in the coming days. Downstream, parts of the central province of Punjab were flooded and emergency crews aided by soldiers airlifted people from hundreds of submerged villages on Sunday in the area of Taunsa, a town on the Indus river about 388 km (241 miles) southwest of Islamabad.

Officials said huge surges were expected in the southern province of Sindh between Tuesday and Thursday, expected to cause widespread damage to property and farmland near river banks and in low-lying areas. "A super flood of this magnitude will be the first in 18 to 20 years to hit Sindh, but major cities like Karachi and Hyderabad were unlikely to be affected," Jameel Soomro, a spokesman for the provincial Sindh government, told Reuters. "The risk is there, danger is there but we are doing our best to minimize losses as much as can." he said.

(Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz in Karachi, Asim Tanveer in Multan and Adrees Latif in Nowshera; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Miral Fahmy)

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Residents wade through receding flood waters while returning to their homes in Nowshera,
located in Pakistan's northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province August 1, 2010.




Elderly men wade past a stranded vehicle and a mosque while evacuating the flooded town of Nowshera,
located in Pakistan's northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province August 1, 2010.




A family wades through receding flood waters while returning to their homes in Nowshera,
located in Pakistan's northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province August 1, 2010.

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Army helicopters look to distribute relief supplies from the air to the residents of Nowshera.




A boy hangs on to the front of a cargo truck while passing through a flooded road in Risalpur.




An elderly man crosses part of the Islamabad Peshawar tollway which washed away due to heavy floods in Charsadda.

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Residents use buckets to scoop water from their house after it was destroyed by floods in the outskirts of Peshawar July 30, 2010.




Azeem Khan, 70, moved parts of his bedroom onto a nearby tollway to escape flood waters in Mardan.




Residents take shelter on high grounds from floods in Risalpur, located in Nowshera District.




A man wades through waist deep waters with his child while escaping floods in Risalpur.