Today's Edition
Islamabad (dpa)
Pakistan on Thursday put rescue agencies on high alert to evacuate people from riverside areas as the death toll from weeks of heavy monsoon rains crossed 150 and a global relief agency warned that millions more might be at risk.
Thousands of rescuers and hundreds of boats were deployed in the central province of Punjab as rainwater flooded the River Indus that flows from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, said Farooq Ahmad, spokesman for the regional rescue agency.
The north-western region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was worse affected by flash floods, landslides and glacial lakes outburst incidents with 57 deaths, said Bilal Faizi of the regional rescue agency.
Thousands of students missed their classes in the valleys near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and China as gushing waters swept away several bridges, highways and roads, Faizi added.
More than 50,000 local and international tourists stranded in the Himalayan valleys were transported to safer places through alternative routes, he said.
Some 154 people, half of them children, have died in rain related incidents since the start of the monsoon season. More heavy rains were expected to continue until August 14, Chief Metrologist Sardar Sarfraz told dpa.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warned that the lives and livelihoods of millions more people may be at risk in the looming rains.
More than 2,000 people were killed by flooding and a subsequent outbreak of disease in Pakistan in 2022 when a third of the South Asian country was submerged by water.
