By Mubasher Bukhari and Mushtaq Ali
LAHORE/PESHAWAR (Reuters) – Floods brought by torrential rains in Pakistan caused damage that killed at least 30 people this week, authorities said on Friday, as the second-largest city of Lahore was drenched in the most rainfall it has received in more than four decades.
The arrival of the monsoon season has sparked floods and landslides across South Asia in the past week, with at least 195 killed and almost 200 missing in one disaster in neighbouring India.
Rain pummelled Pakistan’s north, causing floods, building collapses and heightening the risk of electrocution.
“The 44-year-old rainfall record was broken in Lahore once again,” said utilities officials in the northeastern province of Punjab, where authorities tallied six deaths and warned that flash floods were expected in the south this week.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12 children were among the two dozen people who died in the last three days of rains and floods in the northwestern province, Anwar Shehzad, a spokesman for its disaster management agency, told Reuters.
Global organisations, such as the United Nations, see Pakistan as one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change, with floods wreaking havoc in 2022, killing more than 1,700 people and displacing millions.
(Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore and Mushtaq Ali in Peshawar; Writing by Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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