At least five people, including three children, were killed on Thursday in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) as a result of the third spell of monsoon rains, which also caused flash floods that washed away roads and bridges in some isolated places in the country’s upper and central regions.
The Chenab River in Punjab flooded at least 50 villages, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes after it overflowed its banks due to the heavy rainfall and subsequent flash floods.
Five persons were killed in K-P as a direct result of the rain, four of them in a wall fall in Mansehra.
Officials with the rescue effort say another person was killed in a landslide in the Abbottabad district.
Flash floods in rivers washed away the major roadway and flooded stores in various areas after heavy rain began early in the morning in the Dir district, locals said.
Between Talash Bazaar and Shamshi Khan, the main GT Road reportedly vanished due to flooding.
Following the destruction of the GT Road, a local authority has said that the highway leading to Peshawar is now closed to all traffic.
Passengers were having a tough time due to the road closure, since they were stuck in their cars.
Please see: Four seminary students drown in the Lower Dir
Additionally, there were reports of landslides in Swabi’s outlying hilly hills, cutting off access to Kala Dhaka, Narra, Amazai, and Birgali.
Two buses were reportedly involved in accidents when they went off the road and into ditches near Soray Bridge and Swabi.
Balochistan
As reported by officials and witnesses, flash floods cut off travel between Balochistan and Sindh and washed away the famous Pinjara Bridge in the Bolan highlands, which collapsed during last year’s severe floods in the region.
In spite of efforts lasting over a year, the bridge was never rebuilt. On Thursday, authorities claimed that the remaining section of the bridge had been washed away the day before by flash floods triggered by torrential rainfall. There were hundreds of cars stuck there.
Truck driver Muhammad Aslam informed The Express Tribune over the phone, “We have been waiting for the reopening of the road for the last three days.”
Aslam reported that thousands of people were left trapped on both sides of the road after the bridge gave way.
Recent days have seen severe rainfall over Balochistan, including in the cities of Quetta, Washuk, Pishin, Lasbella, Naseerabad, Kharan, and others.
Hyder Bakhsh Mastoi, a resident of Dera Murad Jamali, remarked, “People here had yet to recover from the impacts of last year’s floods, when the new wave struck.”
Six people have died in floods and torrential rains in Balochistan, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA).
It said it helped those harmed by the floods, but locals there said they weren’t getting the help they needed.
Punjab
According to a social media post by the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), strong monsoon activity is expected in the country’s upper and central regions through Sunday due to the presence of a westerly wave.
When the Chenab River in Punjab overflowed its banks, it flooded at least 50 villages, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes.
Flooding from the monsoons forced the evacuation of more than 14,000 people from their homes in other parts of the province earlier this month, according to officials.
India released stored water into an Indus tributary by opening sluice gates, which impacted river levels.
Although further flooding is likely in the coming days, officials have announced plans to construct protective embankments along the Chenab River.
The National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) was called together by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) because to the continuous downpour. It was decided at the conference that the district governments and the provincial disaster management agencies should be ready for anything that might happen.
Lahore, Sialkot, Sahiwal, Khanewal, Okara, Kakul, and Islamabad had the most precipitation in the past 24 hours, according to an NDMA spokeswoman.
According to the spokeswoman, 157 individuals have been killed and 249 others injured due to rain-related incidents since June 25.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said that flood levels across the country were low to medium, with the exception of the Indus River, which entered a moderate flood stage in Taunsa due to recent rainfall.
Stability was also reported for the eastern rivers of Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej.
The spokesperson for the NDMA stated that during the next day, the Sutlej River near Sulaimanki was projected to reach a moderate flood level.
Khursheed Shah, minister of water resources, separately presided over a meeting in Islamabad to discuss the country’s rivers.
He assured the public that the relevant federal and provincial authorities had been informed and that the issue was under control.
Khursheed said that the water level at the Hub Dam, located close to Karachi, had reached 339 feet, the maximum height.
It was pointed out that the dam held enough water to supply Karachi and the Lasbela district for three years, at a rate of 645,470 acre feet per year.
Flood warning
According to the PMD’s weather report, heavy rain, gusty winds, and thundershowers are on the way to K-P, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Punjab, the Potohar region, Islamabad, the eastern sections of Balochistan, and upper Sindh.
From Saturday onward, the rivers of Dera Ghazi Khan, Zhob, Barkhan, Kohlu, Sibi, Nasirabad, Musakhel, Shirani, Harnai, Bolan, Loralai, Khuzdar, Lasbela, Kech, Torbat, Panjgur, Awaran, and Girdonwah could flood, the report said.
Low-lying parts of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, Nowshera, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Narowal, Sialkot, Lahore, Kasur, and Faisalabad were predicted to be flooded from Thursday through Saturday.
In addition, the steep regions of Murree, Galliyat, Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and K-P were vulnerable to landslides and flooding from local and rain-fed rivers.
Tourists and travelers were warned to be on the lookout for potential danger during the rainy period and to take extra precautions.
The Federal Flood Commission (FFC) predicted that Nowshera’s Kabul River would experience moderate to heavy flash flooding, and that DG Khan Division’s hill torrents would produce similar results, during the following three days.
The daily FFC report indicated that storage levels in the Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs were at 82.44 and 79.43 percent, respectively. Tarbela was at 5.809 MAF while Mangla was at 7.356 MAF. (FROM THE INSIGHT OF AGENTS)
