Heavy rains kill nearly 40 in Pakistan

Near 40 people including children died due to heavy monsoon rains and related accidents in Pakistan, a police official said on Thursday. Most of the people have died because of the roof collapsing incidents in the largest province in Punjab as a result of continuous heavy rains since Wednesday night.

Fifteen people were killed in Lahore where all the roads and streets were flooded, he said. Two people died when a rooftop caved in due to the heavy downpour in Lahore’s GOR-II area, the newspaper Dawn reported. One man died and four others were injured in a similar incident in JoharTown. A rescue operation was launched in the area.

Four others, including two children, were killed in similar incidents of roof collapse in the Godhpur and GreenTown areas as a result of torrential rains. Three more died when the roof of a house collapsed in Gujranwala district.

Also, three persons were killed and 16 were injured in different areas of Faisalabad due to crashing of roof. Two brothers were killed and their sister was injured when the roof of their house in Khanewal area collapsed.

In Narowal’s Chandwaal area, a seven-year-old girl died while five others were injured in Muzaffarabad. In Chiroi and Bhambar areas of Pakistan occupied Kashmir two people including a woman died when their house’s roof caved in.

Also, two siblings died in Manawa and one woman in Samanabad due to electrocution. The current rain spell has been generated by the first well-marked low pressure of the monsoon season that is moving towards Pakistan via India, moist current from the Bay of Bengal and a trough of Westerly wave persisting over northern parts of the country.

The Pakistan meteorological department has send out a warning that it is likely that all rivers in Punjab would be in "very high" to "exceptionally high" flood from Friday to September 7 because of expected intensification of the current spell of fairly widespread rains reported from various parts of the country.