Peshawar – Saba:
Thirty-two people, half of them children, have died in floods that have swept through mountainous northwest Pakistan due to heavy rains since Wednesday, the start of the monsoon season, according to emergency management officials.
A report issued late Friday by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province's disaster management agency stated that "in the past 24 hours, flash floods and landslides have killed 11 people, including four children and three women, and injured six others."
The report added that 10 of the deaths were in the Swat Valley, where floods swept families away from a riverbank, according to Agence France-Presse.
The disaster relief agency report indicated that the floods in the province damaged 56 homes, six of which were destroyed.
In Punjab, the country's most populous province, the Disaster Management Authority has recorded 13 deaths since Wednesday. Among the victims were eight children, all killed by roof or wall collapses, while the adults died due to flash floods in Punjab's rivers, according to local authorities.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department warned that the risk of heavy rains and flash floods will remain high until at least next Tuesday.
Over the past month, 24 people have been killed in severe storms in Pakistan, a South Asian country that has experienced several severe weather events this spring, including severe hailstorms.
Pakistan is one of the countries most affected by the effects of climate change, and its population of 240 million is experiencing increasingly severe weather events.
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