BULER, PAKISTAN (AP) – The torrential rains sparked more sudden floods in two villages in the Kathua district of Kashmir under Indian control, killing at least seven people and injuring five others during the night, officials announced on Sunday.
In the Kishtwar district, The teams continue their efforts in the remote village of ChositiIn search of dozens of disappeared people after the area was affected by sudden floods last week during an annual Hindu pilgrimage. At least 60 people were killed and around 150 injured. More than 300 others have been saved.
In Pakistan, the authorities defended their response to the sudden floods induced by the climate on Sunday who killed more than 270 people in a single northwest district.
Mohammad Suhail, spokesperson for the emergency service, said 54 bodies had been found in Buner, a mountainous part of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where torrential rains and cloud disorders sparked massive floods on Friday.
Suhail said that the villagers remain missing and that research efforts are focused on the areas where houses were flattened by water torrents that swept the mountains, carrying rocks that crashed into houses like explosions.
The authorities warned against more floods and possible landslides by Tuesday, urging local administrations to stay on alert. Monsoon rains greater than normal have whipped the country since June 26 and killed more than 600.
More intense rain warnings to come
Buner residents accused officials of not warning them of evacuating after torrential rains and cloud explosions have triggered fatal floods and landslides. There was no warning diffused from mosque speakers, a traditional method in remote areas.
The government said that if an early alert system was in place, sudden Buner showers were so intense that the flood hit before residents could be alerted.
Lieutenant-General Inam Haider, president of the National Disaster Management Authority, told Islamabad to a hurried press conference that Pakistan knew changing weather conditions due to climate change. Since the start of the monsoon season in June, Pakistan has already received 50% more precipitation as in the same period last year, he added.
He warned that more intense weather conditions could follow, with heavy rain that should continue this month.
Asfandyar Khan Khattak, director general of the provincial disaster management authority, said that there was “no forecast system anywhere in the world” which could predict the exact time and location of a Cloudburst.
Mohammad Iqbal, a teacher from the village of Pir Baba, said that the absence of an opportune alert system had made victims and forced a lot to flee their homes at the last moment.
“The survivors escaped without anything,” he said. “If people had been informed earlier, lives could have been saved and residents could have moved to safer places.”
People are always missing
IDREES MAHSUD, a disaster management manager, said the early alert system of Pakistan used satellite imaging and meteorological data to send alerts to local authorities. These were shared by the media and community leaders. He said that the monsoon rains which, once only inflated the rivers, also sparked urban floods.
A spokesperson for emergency services in Buner, Mohammad Sohail, said that more than half of the damaged roads in the district had reopened on Sunday, allowing vehicles and heavy machines to reach the cut villages.
The crews were cleaning lots of rocks and mud thrown by floods. They still used heavy machines to eliminate the rubble from collapsed houses after families reported that some of their relatives were missing.
In one of the deadliest incidents, 24 people from a family died in the village of Qadar Nagar when flood waters swept their house on the eve of a wedding. The head of the family, Umar Khan, said that he had survived the floods because he was out of the house at the time. Four of his relatives have not yet been found, he added.
Extreme time
Pakistan is very vulnerable to climate -induced disasters. In 2022, A record monsoon killed nearly 1,700 people and destroyed millions of houses.
The country also undergoes sudden floods and regular landslides during the monsoon season, which takes place from June to September, in particular in the northwest rugged, where the villages are often perched on steep slopes and banks.
Experts say Climate change intensifies The frequency and severity of these extreme meteorological events in South Asia.
Khalid Khan, a meteorological expert, said that Pakistan produces less than 1% of the planet’s warm -up emissions, but faces waves of heat, heavy rains, ice lighting floods and now clouds, stressing how climate change is devastating communities in a few hours.
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The writers of the Associated Press Munnir Ahmed in Islamabad and Rasol Dawar in Biner, Pakistan, contributed to this story.
