Rains and lightning leave 36 dead in Pakistan in three days
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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Lightning and downpours have killed at least 36 people in Pakistan, mostly farmers, over the past three days, officials said Monday, as authorities declared a state of emergency in the country’s southwest.
Most of the deaths occurred due to lightning strikes against farmers harvesting wheat and the collapse of houses due to rain in the eastern province of Punjab, said Arfan Kathia, spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority. More rain was expected this week, he said.
The rainfall, which also hit the capital, Islamabad, left seven dead in the southwestern province of Balochistan over the weekend, and another eight people died in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on the border with Afghanistan. Authorities in Balochistan declared a state of emergency.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a televised address that he had ordered authorities to provide aid in affected regions. The country’s water reserves would improve after the rainfall, he noted, although he expressed concern about deaths and damage.
In Afghanistan, heavy flooding from seasonal rains has killed 33 people and injured 27 others in the past three days, said Abdullah Janan Saiq, Taliban spokesman for the Ministry of Natural Disaster Management.
More than 600 houses were damaged or destroyed and about 200 cattle were killed, he added. The floods also damaged numerous crops and more than 85 kilometers (53 miles) of roads.
Authorities in Afghanistan provided aid to nearly 23,000 families, and flash floods were reported in 20 of the country’s 34 provinces, he noted.
Such heavy rains in April are unusual, said Rafay Alam, a Pakistani environmental expert. “Two years ago, Pakistan saw a heat wave in March and April and now we are seeing rains and it is all because of climate change, which caused serious flooding in 2022,” he explained.
Downpours overflowed rivers in 2022, causing floods that covered a third of Pakistan, killing 1,739 people and causing $30 billion in damage.
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Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Islamabad, Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Babar Dogar in Lahore and Abdul Sattar in Quetta contributed to this report.
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