Death toll in rain-related incidents in KP reaches 61: PDMA
The landslide buried a number of houses in different parts.
KOHISTAN (Web Desk / AFP) – Rescue officials have retrieved at least seven bodies while more than 20 persons are still missing after a landslide struck several houses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Kohistan district on Tuesday.
The landslide buried a number of houses in Othar Nala area of tehsil Kandiya.
Disaster management officials in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where 61 people have died since the downpour began Saturday night, said bad weather was hampering the rescue and relief operation.
A spokesman for the PDMA said that rescue workers had not been able to reach three affected districts in the far-flung mountainous north of the province.
"Bad weather is the main reason, we are yet unable to send helicopters to these areas," Rehman said.
Rehman said they had received reports that at least 180 houses had been destroyed in those areas.
We need to get bodies and the injured out from under the rubble and provide food and tents to the survivors," Rehman said, adding that four truckloads of supplies had been sent to affected districts.
"All roads leading to villages and other areas have been blocked... There is no movement at all," Khalid Khan, a courier company owner in Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told AFP, adding that local hospitals lack the facilities to deal with the injured.
In Kashmir’s Neelum Valley, officials said thousands were stranded by landslides.
At least ten people, including five children, died there when two houses were buried in a landslide caused by the rains, Raja Moazzam, a spokesman for local disaster management authority told AFP.
KP GOVT ANNOUNCES COMPENSATION
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has announced a compensation package for the people affected by recent rains.
Three hundred thousand rupees will be given to the heirs of each deceased. Every critically injured person will receive one hundred thousand rupees while the person having minor wounds will get fifty thousand rupees.
The owners of the destroyed houses will receive one hundred thousand rupees and those whose houses have been partially damaged will get fifty thousand rupees.
WEATHER IN NEXT 24 HOURS
Mainly dry weather was expected in most parts of Pakistan from Monday, according to the meteorological department’s website, though thunderstorms were still predicted for Kashmir.
Poorly-built homes across the country, particularly in rural areas, are prone to collapse during the annual spring rains, which are often heavy.
Severe weather hits Pakistan annually, and in recent years hundreds have been killed and huge tracts of prime farmland destroyed, which has delt a heavy blow to the largely agrarian economy.
During the rainy season last summer, torrential downpours and flooding killed 81 people and affected almost 300,000 across the country and in Kashmir.
