Police say rain, floods kill another 16 in northern Pakistan

The National Disaster Management Authority issued a warning of high floods in the Indus River and heavy rains which could inundate several low-lying areas in the northeastern Punjab and southern Sindh provinces in the next couple of days.

The latest fatalities in Chitral in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province brought the number of deaths blamed on the flooding this week to 42 nationwide.

Army troops rescued 164 people displaced by floods in different areas of Chitral as relief operations continued across the country on Friday.

Pakistan’s authorities have ramped up rescue efforts on Wednesday as the threat from flooding in several parts of the country increases.

Meanwhile, 180 people stranded in Kalash and Boni have been shifted by an Army helicopter to Chitral.

It says 194,137 people in the district of Layyah and other regions in the eastern Punjab province have been affected. “According to the reports we have received until now, 26 people have been killed in Chitral, three in Punjab province and seven in Baluchistan”, Ahmed Kamal, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), told AFP.

The latest spell of rains, which started on Friday, is likely to continue for another two days in Pakistan. Every year since 2010, which saw the worst floods in Pakistan’s history, severe weather in the country has killed hundreds and wiped out millions of acres of prime farmland, harming the heavily agrarian economy.