By Naveed Naqvi
ISLAMABAD: A violent rainstorm killed 25 people, including seven children, and injured many more in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said.
The storm hit Bannu division near the Afghan border, where local hospitals were put on alert and the army joined rescue efforts, the area’s commissioner Pervez Patik Khel said.
“Police and district administration are also on alert, and the damage due to the rainstorm is currently being assessed,” he said.
Rescue 1122 officials said their teams were working in Bannu and Karak cities, where most of the casualties were reported.
“Several women and children are among the dead and injured,” said Bilal Faizi, who works with the rescue service.
He said there were reports of walls collapsing and roofs caving in other areas of the province, including Peshawar.
Taimur Ali, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority, said the storm had caused significant damage in Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Karak, and Dera Ismail Khan districts.
He said the district administrations had been instructed to assess the damage.
The caretaker chief minister of the province, Azam Khan, expressed sorrow over the losses and urged authorities to start relief activities as soon as possible.
According to the disaster management authority, at least 69 homes were damaged in Lakki, Karak, and Bannu, and there were fears that the toll could rise further.
The interim information minister of the province, Barrister Feroze Jamal Shah, said a high alert had been issued in the hospitals of the affected districts.
He said the interim government was in contact with the authorities of the affected areas.
Heavy rains and strong winds also battered several parts of Punjab province, where three girls died after a wall of their house collapsed in Khushab district.
Two more people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured in rain-related incidents in Gujranwala and other districts.
Pakistan has been facing a range of climate-related challenges and is considered one of the top 10 places in the world most vulnerable to erratic weather patterns, despite contributing less than one percent to global carbon emissions.
In recent years, the country’s southern region has endured unprecedented heat waves. Last year, heavy monsoon rains and floods submerged about one-third of its landmass, resulting in over 1,700 deaths and an estimated $30 billion worth of damage.
Experts have warned that the country is likely to face more extreme weather events in the coming years due to climate change.
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