ISLAMABAD, June 27: A searing heatwave across Pakistan has killed at least 196 people including a newly-wed bride, with relief from annual monsoon rains not expected for days, weather and health officials said on Monday. The Punjab was the worst hit with about 120 people dying and many suffering ill effects of the extreme heat, a provincial health official said.

Health officials in Sindh said there had been about 10 deaths over the past 24 hours, taking the province’s toll of fatalities due to the heat to about 55.

The highest temperature recorded during the heatwave was in Jacobabad in Sindh, which saw the mercury hitting 52 degrees Celsius (125.6 Fahrenheit) last Friday, a provincial official said.

A weather official said temperatures had eased in about a third of the area hit by the heatwave but the high temperatures would persist elsewhere for at least two more days.

June and July are traditionally the country’s hottest months before seasonal rains cool things off just before the mild autumn.

Hot weather in neighbouring Afghanistan had melted snow across the Hindukush mountains, swelling rivers there and in northwest Pakistan where about 300 families had been forced from their homes by floods, a military official said. —Agencies