First responders have been trying to recover bodies from the badly hit villages of Pir Baba and Malik Pura in Buner, where most of the fatalities were, said deputy commissioner Kashif Qayyum.
An eyewitness who escaped the deluge described seeing floodwaters carrying hundreds of boulders and “tonnes of rocks” crashing down. Another survivor, Mohammad Khan, said the floods “came so fast that many could not leave their homes”.
Residents remove mud to recover an rickshaw from debris after flash flooding in Mingora in Pakistan’s north-west.Credit: AP
Most victims died before reaching hospital, said Mohammad Tariq, a doctor in Buner. Many among the dead were children and men, while women were away in the hills collecting firewood and grazing cattle.
Local police officer Imtiaz Khan described boulder-laden floodwaters flattening homes within minutes.
“A stream near Pir Baba swelled without warning. At first, we thought it was a normal flash flood, but when tonnes of rocks came crashing down with the water, 60 to 70 houses were swept away in moments,” Khan told the Associated Press.
“Our police station was washed away too, and if we hadn’t climbed to higher ground, we would not have survived.”
A helicopter on a relief mission crashed in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing all five crew members, including the two pilots, the provincial chief minister said.
India’s weather department has predicted above-average rainfall during the June-September monsoon season.
Cloudbursts, floods and landslides have caused significant loss of life and property in recent months, with hilly areas being the worst affected. Last week, flash floods swept away an entire village in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
At least 477 have been killed in Pakistan since June due to flash floods.
The country’s disaster management authority has estimated this year’s monsoon to be 65 per cent more intense than last year, and warned that future rainy seasons are likely to be more severe due to climate change.
Bloomberg, Reuters, AP
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