QUETTA, April 4: Quetta valley and surrounding townships and human settlements close to Iran received heavy downpour with high-velocity winds uprooting trees, breaking signboards and hoardings in the main city centre.

The Met office had predicted heavy rains for Thursday after a low pressure developed over Iran and neighbouring regions of Balochistan, bringing in dusty winds with high velocity.

The winds were blowing at an estimated 80 nautical miles per hour, destroying most of the hoardings and trees, while also damaging some houses.

The PIA flights were disturbed by the rough weather, specially so with the dusty winds and poor visibility. Most of the PIA passengers felt uneasy in the bumpy flights over the skies of Quetta.

There were frequent power breakdowns in different parts of the Quetta valley, with different establishments, including newspaper and news agencies’ offices, experiencing snapping of electricity supply off and on.

Some parts of Quetta Cantonment were in complete darkness and power supply could not be restored till late in the night.

However, there were no reports of death or injuries till our writing this dispatch. The rains flooded the main streets and hill torrents gushed out in the downstream while thunder-storms continued till late on Thursday night.

Reports of heavy rains have also been received from Chaman, Noshki, Harnai and Dalbandin. In Boghra camp, 200 tents of Afghan refugees were uprooted by thunder-storm, resulting in injuries to at least 25 inmates.

Many houses also saw their roofs blown away in different parts of Balochistan.