Dozens of people have died in northwestern Pakistan after heavy rains triggered flash floods that destroyed dozens of homes and left roads under water and debris.
Emergency services are trying to deliver aid and carry out evacuations in the mountainous province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the government has declared a state of emergency. The death toll is expected to rise, officials said.
The government also said a helicopter carrying humanitarian aid crashed on 15 August, killing all five people on board.
Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s office said the helicopter crashed due to “bad weather”.
The floods of recent months have caused huge financial and personal losses to people in different parts of Pakistan. Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said that between the last week of June and the end of July, about 300 people, including 140 children, were killed and 700 people, mostly women and children, were injured in the floods.
Experts say the number of floods has increased in recent years partly because of climate change, which has caused rainfall to fall suddenly in intense downpours over small areas rather than steadily over a longer period of time and over a wider area.
