Bandang Floods Caused By Highest Rainfall In Last Three Decades Kill 549 People In Pakistan

JAKARTA - Flash floods caused by torrential monsoon rains killed at least 549 people in Pakistan over the past month, with remote communities in the impoverished southwest province of Balochistan the worst affected, a government agency said.

Government agencies and the army have set up relief and refugee camps in flood-hit areas, working to help relocate families and provide food and medicine.

Apart from hundreds of fatalities, this flash flood also damaged more than 46,200 houses, said the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), Friday.

"We are doing our best to provide extensive assistance and rehabilitation for flood victims," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said during a visit to flood-hit areas.

While citing The Hindu, military-backed rescue workers have evacuated thousands of stranded people, including women and children, from southwest Balochistan Province, in the northwest and elsewhere, as the government deployed helicopters to expand relief and rescue operations. ongoing.

Last month was the wettest in three decades, with rainfall 133 percent more than the average for the past 30 years, the NDMA said.

As for Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, it receives 305 percent more rain than the annual average, the disaster agency said.