At least 22 killed as rains wreak havoc in KP

PESHAWAR: At least 22 persons were killed and several reportedly injured in accidents caused by heavy rains across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Heavy rains have battered the province for the past couple of days, triggering landslides and flash flooding which has killed dozens of people including ten from a single family.

In Bazikhel area of Darra Adam Khel, Kohat, 10 members of a family were killed when rainwater inundated the basement of their home where they were sleeping.

The victims included three women, three men and four children. According to rescue officials, the basement was filled with water when rescue teams arrived at the site. Rescuers entered the home after demolishing the front wall and pumped out the water from the basement but found no survivors.

Casualties were also reported from other parts of KP, according to the Prov­incial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) data and reports by Dawn correspondents.

Two people each were killed in Mansehra, Lower Chitral, Bajaur, Charsadda and Lower Dir, while one person each lost their lives in Haripur and Hangu districts.

Two men died in Lower Chitral after being caught in gushing floodwater. Villagers managed to rescue two minors who drowned in a stream in Khurzg village of Yarkhoon sub-valley of Upper Chitral.

Around 16 homes were washed away by the flash flood that ravaged the Golen Valley in Lower Chitral. The Reshun village on the left bank of Chitral River was also devastated by a flash flood in the stream. In the nearby Mori Bala village, four houses and a mosque were destroyed. Several houses were damaged in villa­ges of Upper Chitral, leaving 63 families homeless.

A 108-megawatt hydropower station on the Golen Gol stream has also been closed, leaving Lower and Upper Chitral districts without electricity. In Mansehra, a woman and her son were swept away in flood water.

Two minors were killed in the Bosta village of Miskini Dara after a mudslide hit a house. The bodies of the victims, Hameed­ullah, 8, and Junaidullah, 5, were retrieved from the debris by locals.

Heavy rains also continued in Swabi, Mardan, Lower South Waziristan and Abbottabad districts; however, no casualties were reported from there.