Rains, landslides kill 33 across Pakistan

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) – At least 32 people have been killed and dozens injured due to landslides and house-collapse incidents triggered by massive rains across Pakistan over the past 72 hours, the local disaster management authority said on Sunday.

Heavy rains coupled with snowfall triggered landslides and caused roofs and walls to collapse in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces since Thursday, aside from blocking roads and uprooting trees and utility poles.

Most of the deaths have been reported from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, where 27 people, including children and women, lost their lives in rain-related accidents, while another 38 were injured since Thursday, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said in a statement.

Another five deaths were reported from different parts of Balochistan.

Unseasonal rains that started late last week wreaked havoc on Balochistan's strategic port city of Gwadar, inundating roads and streets and destroying houses.

Newly elected Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti told a news conference in the provincial capital Quetta on Sunday that incessant rains have destroyed - completely and partially - some 700 houses in Gwadar.

Like other regional countries, Pakistan has been experiencing unseasonal rains and regular floods, which are linked to climate change, for the last several years.

The South Asian country is among the top 10 countries vulnerable to the climate change ravages.