Over 30 dead as floods sweep away mosque, homes in Pakistan

Flash floods triggered by heavy rain have killed at least 28 people in northern Pakistan, officials said on Sunday, including some who were swept away while praying at a mosque.
Torrential rains began to pelt the Chitral district, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, on Saturday and continued into the night, residents said.
The worst hit district was Chitral, on the country’s northwest border, where flood waters swept away a mosque, several houses and army post in the remote village of Ursoon, said Chitral mayor Maghferat Shah.
“The floodwater killed 10 people and caused serious injuries to 21 others at the mosque. Some of them had been swept away in the floodwater and are still missing,” he said.
During the holy month of Ramadan it is common for people to pray at the mosque during night hours.
Shah said 18 people had been killed in other areas due to rain and flash floods, and there were fears the death toll will increase once rescuers reach remote mountainous areas. 
Osama Waraich, another senior local official, added that eight bodies of the missing villagers had been found from the Afghan side and six soldiers were still missing.
Separately, two Chinese engineers were killed and five Pakistani workers injured when the roof of a construction site collapsed at Tarbela Dam owing to the rains that began late Saturday, Latifur Rehman, spokesman for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said.
Rescue and relief operations were underway, he added.
Shah said the bad weather hampered rescue efforts but by Sunday morning most bodies had been recovered and identified.
He said nearby roads had been washed away and so authorities had called for helicopters to join rescue and relief operations in the remote area.
Chitral is in the far north of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province.
In April rains and landslides killed 127 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan region and Pakistani Kashmir.
Poorly built homes across Pakistan, particularly in rural areas, are susceptible to collapse during the annual spring and monsoon rains in July-August, which are often heavy.
Severe weather in recent years has killed hundreds and destroyed huge tracts of prime farmland.
During the rainy season last summer, torrential downpours and flooding killed 81 people and affected almost 300,000 people across the country.
The worst flooding in recent times occurred in 2010, which covered almost a fifth of the country’s total land mass, killed nearly 2,000 people and displaced 20 million.

Source: Arab News