People gather at a rickshaw stand which was hit by lightning during a rainstorm that lashed Peshawar early
Thursday. — White Star
People gather at a rickshaw stand which was hit by lightning during a rainstorm that lashed Peshawar early Thursday. — White Star

PESHAWAR: Seven people, mostly children, were killed and around 25 were injured after torrential rains coupled with strong winds and hailstorm lashed the provincial capital early on Thursday, rescue officials and doctors said.

Statements of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and relevant agencies put the death toll at five, including two men and three women, and the number of the injured at 25.

According to Lady Reading Hospital doctors, among the deceased were siblings Asad, 3, Awais, 11, and Tasleem of Urmar village on the outskirts of the city; Mahnoor, 13, of Jhagra village; Sidra, 8, of Phando village, and Abdullah and his young sister, Ayesha, of Urmar Miana.

Those, who suffered injuries due to the collapse of houses, were from Urmar and Phando villages, Afghan Colony, Surizai Payan, Qadeem Kially, Landai Sarak and Nishtar Hall.


Lightning destroys 19 rickshaws


In a statement, the Rescue 1122 said its staff rescued at least 18 people, who were buried in heaps of rubbles of collapsed houses.

Also, lightning struck a rickshaw stand in Qazi Killay area gutting at least 19 rickshaws. However, 50 vehicles were saved from the raging flames.

Two fire engines and 10 firefighters took 45 minutes to put out the blaze.

An official of the Met Department told Dawn that at least 47 millimeters rainfall was recorded in the city.

He said rain was intense in city areas and not so powerful in the Peshawar Airport and Hayatabad localities.

“We recorded 18 millimeters of rain at Peshawar Airport,” he said.

The official said the department had forecast rain.

He said with the monsoon system approaching its end in the next week or so, interactions of westerly winds from Afghanistan with easterly monsoon winds was creating disturbance at local level, which resulted into cyclone type weather patterns in an area of 20-25 kilometers radius.

The official said the wind’s speed during the rain reached 91 kilometers per hour.

He said there was chance of rain on Thursday night as well.

The rain turned large parts of the city into cesspools as rainwater accumulated in low-lying parts of roads, while the drains overflowed into nearby areas.

In many areas, rainwater entered houses creating problems for the people, while lights went out after the rains coupled with gusty winds lashed the city.

Many parts of the city remained without electric supply from the night to dawn, even an hour after the rain stopped.

In a statement issued here, the PDMA said it was waiting for the submission of the detailed damage assessment report by the district government.

An official familiar with the issue told Dawn that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had no mechanism to predict that kind of weather patterns as PMDA radars installed in Punjab could not precisely forecast weather patterns in upper parts of the province.

He said the plan to install two Doppler radars one each in Cherat and Chitral hadn’t been executed so far despite allocation of Rs70 million made following the 2010 floods.

“We need advanced technology to be able to predict weather patterns in the upper parts of the country, which have implications for rest of the country,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2015

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