Officials said on Friday that the flash floods caused by heavy rains killed more than 280 people and left dozens of others missing in India and Pakistan over the past 24 hours.
In Pakistan, a government statement said that a helicopter carrying relief supplies to the northwest of Bagour, which was damaged in the floods, was crashed on Friday due to bad weather, killing all five people on board, including two pilots.
Surprising and intense heavy rains on small spaces, known as Cloudbursts, have become increasingly common in the Himalayas areas of India and the northern regions of Pakistan, which are exposed to floods and landslides. Cloudbursts has the possibility of chaos by causing floods and looting the ground, affecting thousands of people in mountainous areas.
Experts say Cloudbursts has partially increased in recent years due to climate change, while the damage caused by storms also increased due to unplanned development in mountainous areas.
Dozens lost in the remote village of Himalayas
Officials, controlled by India, said that the rescuers were looked for for missing persons in the remote village of Shoiti in the Himalayan Mountains on Friday after the floods left at least 60 people and lost at least 80 people.
Officials stopped the rescue operations overnight, but they saved at least 300 people on Thursday after a strong cloud that caused floods and landslides. Officials said many missing persons are believed to have been washed.
He said that Harverider Singh, the local resident, joined the rescue efforts immediately after the disaster and helped recover 33 bodies under the clay.
At least 50 people were seriously injured in local hospitals, many of whom were rescued from a stream filled with mud and debris. Disaster Management Officer Mohamed Irhad said that the number of missing persons may increase.
Weather officials expect more heavy rains and floods in the area.
Chositi, in the Kishtwar area of Kashmir, is the last village available for cars on the annual Hindu Hajj road to a mountainous shrine at an altitude of 3000 meters.
The officials said the pilgrimage, which started on July 25 and was scheduled to end on September 5.
The destroyed floods swept the main community kitchen prepared for pilgrims, as well as dozens of vehicles and motorcycles. Officials said that more than 200 pilgrims were in the kitchen at the time of the West Bank, which led to the damage or washing of many houses that gathered together in the slopes of the hills.
She said her Sunnah, which gave only one name, that her husband and daughter were swept away while the flood water was flowing on the mountain. The two were eating a meal in the kitchen of society while she and her son were close. She said that the family came to the Hajj.
Pictures and videos on social media show widespread damage, as household goods are scattered next to vehicles and damaged homes in the village. The authorities made temporary bridges on Friday to help the pilgrims who were interrupted to cross a muddy water canal and used dozens of pieces of equipment to change the rocks and trees that were uprooted, electricity columns and other debris.
The Kishtwar region is home to multiple hydroelectric projects, which has long warned experts a threat to the fragile ecosystem in the region.
Hundreds of tourists are trapped due to floods in Pakistan
In the north and northwestern Pakistan, the failed floods have killed at least 243 people in the past 24 hours, including 157 people who died in the Boner region, which was affected by the floods in northwestern Pakistan on Friday.
Mohamed Suhail, a spokesman for the regional emergency service, told Associated Press that dozens of people were still missing, and the rescue operations were ongoing.
He said that 78 bodies of different parts of the area were recovered by mid -Friday, and 79 others were withdrawn from the ruins of the collapsed houses and the villages that were overwhelmed by the water at a later time.
“The death toll may rise because we are still looking for dozens of missing people,” Suhail said.
Dozens were wounded when the flood destroyed the houses in the villages in Boner, where the authorities declared a state of emergency on Friday. Ambulances transported more than 100 bodies to hospitals, according to a government statement.
District Prime Minister Ali Amin Gandabur said that the helicopter that was crashed on Friday was on the relief mission when it fell in the northwest.
At least 35 people are still missing in these areas, according to local officials. The latest deaths reach the total number of rain -related deaths to 556 since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
Deaths were reported from different parts of Pakistan on Thursday. Bilal Fayezi, a spokesman for the regional emergency service in Khaybar Bakhtongua, said that rescuers are working for hours to save 1,300 tourists after they fell into floods and comic collapse in the Surir Valley in the Manshra area on Thursday.
Prime Minister Shaybaz Sharif ordered, at the emergency meeting, with the authority of disaster management to ensure the evacuation of tourists and all who were struck in the floods.
Gilgit-Baltistan has been exposed through many floods since July, which has led to landslides along the Karakoram High Road, a commercial road and a major travel linking Pakistan and China that tourists use to travel to the north. The area is a habitat of picturesque ice rivers that provide 75 percent of the water supply stored in Pakistan.
During the summer, when schools are closed for more than two months, hundreds of thousands of people travel to stunning views in the north and northwestern Pakistan. This year, despite the repeated government warnings about the landslides and sudden floods, many still visit the popular resorts in the areas affected by the floods. Officials said the rescuers have postponed nearly 2000 tourists from rain and floods to safer sites during the past 24 hours.
The Disaster Management Agency in Pakistan issued new alerts of ice floods in the north, and warned travelers against avoiding affected areas.
A study issued this week by World Weatherrtive, a network of international scientists, found rains in Pakistan from June 24 to July 23, was heavier than 10 to 15 percent due to global warming. In 2022, the country’s worst seasonal wind season was killed more than 1700 people and damaged an estimated $ 40 billion.
The mother and father tells the moment in which they learned about the flood and the landslide that struck the village of Himalayas in Darali on Tuesday – and how they spoke with one of their children before losing communication and did not hear again.
https://i.cbc.ca/1.7609832.1755263484!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_1180/india-kashmir-flash-floods.jpg?im=Resize%3D620
Source link