Pakistan: Flash floods kill 11 amid heavy rain warning

Flash floods in Pakistan's northwest mountainious province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have killed 11 people, including four children, the country's disaster management officials said.

"In the past 24 hours, flash floods and landslides have claimed the lives of 11 people, including four children and three women, while six others have been injured," the provincial disaster management authority said in a report released late Friday.

One person was killed in the Malakand district while the 10 others were killed in the Swat Valley, according to the report. Local media reported that families had been swept away and that the flooding had damaged 56 houses along the Swat river.

Pakistan's local daily newspaper Dawn reported that rescue operations were underway in several other districts with people trapped in the water.

Meanwhile, the national meteorological department warned of heavy rainfall and a possibility of more flash floods until Tuesday.

Pakistan and climate change
Pakistan is among the world's more vulnerable countries to the effect of climate change with an increasing frequency of flash floods and other climate-related events impacting its 240 million inhabitants.

In May, some 24 people were killed in severe storms in Pakistan. In August 2022, a third of the country was flooded due to unprecedented monsoon rainfall with more than 33 million people affected. Scientists from across the globe have since said that the climate crisis was to blame and that rising global temperatures will only make monsoons more intense in future.

Pakistan continues to 'sleepwalk' on climate change- former minister
Pakistan's former climate change minister Sherry Rehman took to X, saying that the nation continued to "sleepwalk" on climate change and the threat it posed. She pointed to regular alerts issued by the national disaster management agency and said that local authorities had failed to take them seriously.

"Not only did the provincial administration fail to understand the magnitude of the crisis, I keep repeating, so did denialist tourists. This is endemic to a system that thinks that climate change can just be put on a back burner, or that crises will not multiply in scale and intensity," she wrote.

"These are not "natural disasters" which absolve all actors of responsibility, local, national and global. Super monsoons and flash floods are not the norm. They have been intensifying for decades," she added, urging the country to "wake up" the to the issue.