Relentless rain triggered landslides and roof collapses across northern Pakistan, leaving at least 67 people dead, officials and reports said on Wednesday.
At least 37 survivors of the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistani Kashmir were killed when landslides swept away their mountainside homes, police spokesperson Javed Ahmed said in the regional capital Muzaffarabad.
Twenty-seven people, mostly women, died and 16 were injured when a huge landslide hit Doba Syedan village in Kashmir’s Jhelum Valley area late on Tuesday, police spokesperson Javed Ahmed said.
Another 10 were killed in a separate landslip at Jabar Daray village in the mountainous Bagh district on Tuesday, Ahmed said.
”It has been raining here for two days and the landslides happened almost simultaneously. These people were in houses built on terraces on the hillsides, and huge landslides buried them,” Ahmed said.
”Police and army teams are in the area trying to remove the debris and recover the bodies. So far, two bodies have been recovered in the Jhelum Valley. Efforts are being made to recover the others.”
Ahmed added: ”It’s very unfortunate. These are the people who were worst hit in the earthquake.”
The 7,6-magnitude quake in October 2005 claimed more than 73 000 lives and left 3,3-million homeless in Pakistani Kashmir and north-western Pakistan. More than 1 000 also died in Indian Kashmir.
Landslides and avalanches were also reported in North West Frontier province bordering Afghanistan, and press reports said the nationwide toll excluding Kashmir stood at more than 30.
Five members of a family were buried alive when an avalanche hit their home in mountainous Swat district on Tuesday, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said. Five more died when their roof caved in in the same district.
Four family members were reported killed in a landslide in the nearby town of Mingora and another seven died when their house collapsed in Malakand district. A house collapse also left three children and women dead in Mardan.
Torrential rains and heavy snow also paralysed life in northern Pakistan and traffic was blocked on the main Karakoram highway linking Pakistan with China.
The meteorological department has forecast more rains in Kashmir and north-west Pakistan over the next 36 hours.
Heavy rains early last month claimed 30 lives, while a cold wave caused by winter rains in December left 20 dead across the country. Last year, monsoon rains killed 192 people. — Sapa-AFP