Heavy rains leave 22 dead
LAHORE/KARACHI: Heavy rains in Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir on Friday left 22 people dead, destroyed crops and marooned a large number of people.
An official of the Disaster Management Authority said that most of the casualties were reported from Sindh where torrential rains on Thursday night wreaked havoc in several districts.
Fifteen people died in Mirpurkhas and two children in Sanghar’s Darya Khan Dhari village when roofs of their thatched houses caved in.
Intermittent rains caused flood-like situation in several areas of lower Sindh, destroying cotton and other crops.
In Lahore, a boy was killed and five people were injured after roofs of their houses collapsed during the torrential rains which hit the city in the afternoon. The rains virtually kept the city paralysed for several hours.
The Flood Forecasting Division (FFD) in Lahore said river flows might go up because fairly widespread rain was likely in catchment areas in the next 24 to 36 hours.
FFD’s Chief Meteorologist Riaz Khan told Dawn that a change in the direction of the low pressure might cause fairly widespread thundershowers over upper catchments of rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej.
He said India released 85,000 cusecs of water in the Chenab River from its Akhnoor Dam on Friday, causing a low flood in it. The flow of the river at Marala was 108,000 cusecs. The Kabul River was also in low flood at Nowshera.
The FFD forecast moderate flooding in D.G. Khan and Rajanpur districts because of moderate to heavy rains at times in the Suleiman Range.
It said that medium to high flood was likely in Deg, Aik, Palkhu, Bhed, Hasri and Basanatar nullahs in the Sialkot region in the next 24 hours. The flood likely to inundate areas of Narowal, Sialkot, Gujranwala and Gujrat.
The Met office forecast fairly widespread thundershowers with isolated heavy to very heavy rains over Sindh, Kashmir, Punjab and lower Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the next 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Sukkur received 99mm of rains on Friday, Okara 60mm, Sialkot Cantt 51mm, Kotli 46mm, Badin and Sahiwal 43mm, Sialkot Airport 33mm, Sargodha 32mm, Jhelum 31mm, Risalpur 30mm, Murree 29mm, Chakwal 27mm, Mangla and Mandi Bahauddin 25mm, Rawalakot and Lower Dir 24mm (each), Cherat 23mm, Jacobabad 22mm, Garhi Dupatta and Hyderabad 15mm, Malamjabba 14mm, Kakul 12mm, Muzaffarabad 11mm, Rohri 10mm, Saidu Sharif and Skardu 9mm, Bahawalpur Airport 8mm, Balakot and Chhor 4mm, Joharabad and Astore 3mm, Dir and Mithi 2mm, Pattan, Khuzdar, Nawabshah and Peshawar airport 1mm.