At least 194 people have died in the last 24 hours in heavy monsoon floods and landslides in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Most of the deaths, 180, were recorded by disaster authorities in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northern Pakistan. At least 30 homes were destroyed and a rescue helicopter crashed during operations, killing its five crew.
Nine more people were killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while five died in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, it said.
Government forecasters said heavy rainfall was expected until August 21 and there is a heavy rain alert for the northwest of the country. Several regions have been declared disaster zones.
The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gadapur, said that the M-17 helicopter crashed due to bad weather while flying to Bajaur, a region bordering Afghanistan.
In Bajaur, a crowd amassed around an excavator trawling a mud-soaked hill. Funeral prayers began in a paddock nearby, with people grieving in front of several bodies covered by blankets.
Monsoon rains between June and September deliver about three-quarters of South Asia’s annual rainfall. Landslides and flooding are common and more than 300 people have died in this year’s season.
In July, Punjab, home to nearly half of Pakistan’s 255 million people, recorded 73 per cent more rainfall than the previous year and more deaths than in the entire previous monsoon.
Scientists say that climate change has made weather events more extreme and more frequent.
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