Dozens of people have been killed in accidents and floods caused by torrential rains that have lashed Pakistan for days on end, officials yesterday.
Precipitation reached record levels in Karachi, the country’s largest city, where waist-deep rivers of trash-strewn floodwater swept down streets and into homes and businesses.
Eighteen people died in the southern city on Thursday “in various rain-related accidents”, a police spokeswoman said.
Around 2mn people were feared trapped in Karachi, with neighbourhoods still inaccessible for rescuers because of severe flooding across the city, local police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon said.
At least 23 people were killed on Thursday alone, said Faisal Edhi, head of Pakistan’s largest Edhi Foundation charity that runs a network of ambulances and morgues.
The death toll was expected to go up sharply when rescuers reach inaccessible areas, Edhi said.
Pakistan’s army said military and civilian rescuers were mounting a huge operation using helicopters, boats and heavy vehicles to reach victims in flooded streets with food and medicines.
Once the rains stop, it will take authorities at least a week to drain the water from the city streets, said Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah.
A record 230mm of rain was recorded in Karachi, home to about 20mn people, compared to the average of 130mm for the time of year, the city’s meteorological service chief Sarfraz Ahmed said.
Meteorological officials said the rains were expected to continue in the city until at least Monday.
The provincial government declared a public holiday to avoid residents having to commute yesterday, with Chundrigar Road, home to the central bank, stock exchange and head offices of several banks, flooded.
Chief Minister Shah ordered schools be used to accommodate displaced families, whose homes had been damaged or were unreachable.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 16 people were killed in flash floods yesterday, with landslides damaging 67 houses.
And in Punjab, local officials said four workers were killed when a warehouse roof collapsed yesterday.
Several thousand villagers in the province were being evacuated as at least two of the region’s five rivers flooded.
The spillways of two dams near the capital Islamabad were opened on Thursday as they were filled to capacity, causing flooding in nearby towns.
The monsoon, which usually lasts from June to September, is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing water supplies across the subcontinent, home to one-fifth of the world’s population.
However, each year, the intense rainfall also brings a wave of destruction.
Apart from floods in rivers caused by rains on the Himalayas, climate change has posed challenges like urban flooding and glacial lake outburst flooding in recent years.
In total, floods killed 103 people this month in Pakistan: 54 in Karachi, 33 in Punjab and 16 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, according to official figures compiled by AFP.
Members of an army medical team provide treatment to flood-affected people at a camp in Karachi.
