At least five dead as houses continue to collapse in K-P

Another weather system expected to enter from Balochistan on Wednesday

CHITRAL/ MANSEHRA/ PESHAWAR/ CHARSADDA/ BATKHELA:

The rain might have stopped, but buildings kept collapsing even on Tuesday as five people of a family were killed in Malakand when the roof of their house caved in. The meteorological office has forecast more rain over the weekend.

In total 47 people have been killed over the last two weeks in rains across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said. “These are only initial estimates,” it said as the province faced more adverse weather conditions which climatologists considered effects of the fading El Nino.

Irreversible

Five of a family were reportedly killed as the roof of their house caved in due to recent rainfall in Nawan Kalay area which lies near Malakand’s border with Charsadda. Locals claimed the house of Khan Said collapsed when his family was eating lunch, killing four women and a child on the spot. Three others were critically injured.

Locals rescued the injured people from the house and shifted them to Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. The dead included Khan Said’s wife Muhammadia, Fatima, Saima, Ranaz and a two-year-old Asghar. Two of the injured were identified as Khadija and Abidullah.

Due to landslides, Jijal and Shityal in Kohistan had been closed for the last three days. Mansehra Nazim Sardar Said Ghulam’s car was hit by a landslide 35km from Domail in Mansehra City. He was returning from his village Jabar Devli when the incident occurred. He was stranded for four hours until Jabori Hydropower Project workers helped him.

Buried by an avalanche

Chances of survival have almost faded away for five students and two others who were buried under an avalanche that hit Chitral three days ago. The disaster struck on Saturday afternoon near the village of Susum, north of Chitral.

The hunt for the missing people entered a third day as an urban search team of 12 members landed in a helicopter in Karimabad. In order to help these efforts, the National Disaster Management Authority requisitioned an MI-17 helicopter from the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF).

“We’ve completed the initial assessment and our strategy has been finalised,” NDMA Assistant Director Tariq told The Express Tribune via telephone from Susum.

A member of Karimabad district council, Muhammad Yaqoob, said localised methods of search for those buried under the snow, which is 30 metres thick, yielded no results. He said foxes were used at night and sniffing dogs during the day in the identified areas, but with no success.

Officials said rescue work had to be halted due to the intensity of the sun which caused the ice to melt and brought on problems for rescue workers.

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) state of the climate report for 2015 highlights extreme weather conditions around the world, including the heatwave in Karachi and the rare tornado in Peshawar.

However, the report says even if El Nino subsides, weather patterns will continue to show anomalies. The summer monsoon, which was erratic in 2015, was concentrated over the first half of the season in areas where rain seldom falls. The pattern is likely to resume in the current year, experts suggested, as more than average rains were recorded in several areas.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department issued a weather advisory of a fresh westerly weather likely to enter Balochistan on Wednesday (today) evening/night and likely to spread over K-P, Fata and Punjab on Thursday. It warned rain could cause flash floods and landslides in areas of Hazara and Malakand divisions.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2016.