Peshawar : At least 41 people were killed and hundreds of others injured Sunday after storms coupled with torrential rains struck various cities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s cities of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera toppling dozens of buildings, officials said.
Fallen trees, rubble from buildings and mobile phone towers had blocked several main roads, an AFP reporter at the scene said, while flood water from torrential rainfall had reached three feet (one metre) deep in some parts of the city of more than three million people.
“In Peshawar alone, the death toll has risen to 29 and 180 people have been injured,” senior local government official Riaz Khan Mehsud said. Dr Niaz Saeed, a senior police official, confirmed the figures.
According to reports pouring in from Charsadda and its neighboring areas, unusually heavy downpour caused many houses to cave in resulting in the deaths of at least ten people. The rain-related accidents also left dozens more injured. At least two people also lost their lives in Nowshera, sources told Samaa.
Mushtaq Ali Shah, director of the provincial meteorological department, described the storm as a “mini cyclone with wind speeds of 110 kilometres per hour (68 miles per hour)”.
He added the cyclone had lost speed but heavy rainfall was expected in the province’s northern districts over the next three to four hours.
Mehsud meanwhile told AFP that rescue operations were being hampered by the blocked roads and disrupted communications due to the collapse of mobile towers.
The military was also called in to boost rescue efforts, equipped with ground penetrating radars, concrete cutters and sniffer dogs, according to a tweet by the army spokesman.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his grief over the loss of life and property.
“He extended condolences to the aggrieved families and asked provincial government and disaster management authorities to gear up rescue efforts so as to control the damage,” a statement by his office said.
Safety standards, particularly in construction, are very lax in nuclear-armed but economically underdeveloped Pakistan.
Many of the more than 200 killed in last year’s heavy monsoon rains died after roofs collapses.
Poor construction was blamed for the collapse of the Margalla Towers apartment block in Islamabad in a 2005 earthquake, killing 78 people.
The city of Peshawar is also at the forefront of Pakistan’s battle against an Islamist insurgency that rose up in 2004 following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the migration of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants to the country’s border tribal areas. (Agencies)
