11 die amid heavy rainfall in northwest Pakistan

At least 11 more people were killed and over two dozen injured in rain-related incidents, as heavy rainfall continued to batter parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), officials said yesterday.
Rain has continued to lash different districts of KP, including Mansehra, Battagram, Bunir, Shangla, Kohistan and Swat, for days causing widespread damage to roads and houses and causing landslides at some points.
Taj Mohamed, spokesperson for the Rescue 1122 service in Bunir, said that three people – a woman and two children – were killed and three others injured at Chagharzai, while another woman died in the Ryal area of Bunir after the roofs of their houses collapsed due to rain and landslides.
The injured were moved to District Headquarters Hospital Bunir, he added.
Additionally, four people, including a woman and a child, were killed when their house in Hussain Banda in Oghi tehsil of Mansehra, was hit by a landslide, according to rescue officials.
Two other people were also injured.
Battagram Deputy Commissioner Abdul Hameed said that two girls aged between nine and 12 were killed when heavy boulders, displaced by the rains and flooding, struck their house in the district’s Rashang area.
Local people dug through the debris to recover the bodies, he said.
Hameed said seven houses had collapsed across the district so far, and eight major and link roads were blocked due to landslides.
He added that water supply schemes in different parts of the district were also damaged.
Meanwhile, a 30-year-old man, identified as Mohamed Azeem, drowned in the Nandyar river in Battagram while trying to collect wood, Hameed said.
Upper Kohistan Deputy Commissioner Arif Yousafzai said that around 10-15 houses, a mosque and a seminary were damaged in the rains while, link roads of the entire Kandia tehsil were blocked due to landslides.
Water supply schemes were also damaged at various points, he added.
Imran Hussain Ranjha, the Shangla deputy commissioner, said that major infrastructural damage, especially to roads, was reported in the district due to flash floods.
In particular, a 1km stretch of the Karora-Ajmeer road was washed away while other major and link roads were damaged.
A suspension bridge linking Damorai with Banda was swept away in the flash floods, Ranjha said.
Construction and works department has already begun efforts to clear the roads, he said, adding that the work was however being hindered by continuous rainfall.
Ranjha further said that his revenue staff was collecting information about the houses that were damaged, adding that reports were being received from across the district about damage to houses, roads and water supply lines.
Bisham Assistant Commissioner Khurram Rehman said houses in the area near rivers had been evacuated as the flow of water was increasing.
A day earlier, at least two people were killed and seven others injured in various incidents in the Shangla district amid the widespread rains.
According to a statement from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Peshawar and other northern areas were seeing a heavy spell of rain while flooding was reported in storm-water drains in Swat, Chitral and Kohistan.
Last Friday, at least 20 people were killed and nine suffered injuries in flash floods caused by cloudbursts in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Landslides also hit vehicles in Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan, killing a truck driver and injuring several others.