4 killed, 3 injured in Ghizer Valley landslide

More than 33mm rain has been recorded in Gilgit and the rain spell will end by anytime tonight, an official says.

GHIZER, GILGIT: Four members of the same family were killed and three others sustained wounds after landslides triggered by heavy showers struck a village in a remote village of Gilgit-Baltistan early Tuesday, officials said.

A Pakistan Red Crescent Society official, Safdar Ali told The Express Tribune that the deceased, two of them women, lived in Ghizer Valley’s Qurqulti village which is about 150 kilometers from Gilgit.

“The incident occurred sometime during dawn,” he said, adding that local volunteers started the rescue work and pulled out some bodies from the rubble.

According to Shafiq, a resident of Yaseen valley, more than 10 houses were hit by the landslide.

For its vulnerable location, the government had forewarned the villagers to move to a safer place if rains started lashing the valley, he said.

A senior district administration official in Ghizer, Shuja Alam, said that landslides had blocked various routes in the valley, adding that the government was trying to reach out to the affected people.

According to the meteorological department, rainfall in the mountainous G-B started Monday evening and continued lashing the region till the filing of this report.

More than 33mm rain has been recorded in Gilgit and the rain spell will end by tonight, said an official.

The prolonged spell of rains has cut off various valleys from the capital town of Gilgit as landslides blocked roads and interrupted traffic. According to officials, the Gilgit-Rawalpindi road has also been blocked by landslides at some places, suspending traffic temporarily on the Karakoram Highway.