NEW DELHI (AP) — Intense rains have lashed parts of Pakistan and India and triggered flash floods and landslides in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s Jammu region, leaving at least 34 people dead, officials said Wednesday.
A section of a mountainside in Jammu collapsed and hit a popular Hindu pilgrimage route following heavy rains in the Katra area late Tuesday. Devotees were trekking on foot to reach the hilltop temple, which is one of the most visited shrines in northern India, officials said.
The bodies of most of the pilgrimage victims were recovered from under the debris of stones, boulders and rocks, according to disaster management official Mohammed Irshad, who said at least 18 people were injured and transported to hospitals.
Rescue teams scoured the Himalayan area Wednesday for missing people and the pilgrimage to the shrine has been suspended, Irshad said.
Authorities in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province on Wednesday called for army assistance in rescue and relief efforts after torrential rains caused major rivers to swell, inundating villages and displacing more than 150,000 people, officials said.
Rescuers evacuated more than 20,000 people overnight from the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, which also faced the risk of flood. Those evacuated from areas near Lahore were living along the bed of the Ravi river, said Irfan Ali Kathia, director-general of the Punjab Disaster Management Authority.
Mass evacuations began earlier this week in six districts of Punjab after heavier-than-normal monsoon rains and the release of water from overflowing dams in neighboring India trigged flash floods in low-lying border regions, Kathia said.
Forecasters predicted rain will continue across the region this week. Heavy downpours and flash floods in the Himalayan region have killed nearly 100 people in August.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday praised authorities for the timely evacuations to avoid losses and said relief supplies and tents are being provided to flood-effected people, according to a government statement.
Kathia warned floodwaters in the Ravi, Chenab and Sutlej rivers were rising dangerously and many villages were inundated in Kasur, Okara, Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, Vehari and Sialkot districts.
Rescuers have used boats to evacuate people to safer places this week, Kathia said. India alerted Pakistan about possible cross-border flooding through diplomatic channels rather than the Indus Waters Commission, which is the permanent mechanism under the 1960 World Bank brokered Indus Waters Treaty.
New Delhi suspended the commission’s work after the April killing of 26 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, though Islamabad insists India cannot unilaterally scrap the treaty.
The latest flood warning comes as rescuers with sniffer dogs search for more than 150 people who have been reported missing this month after cloudburst flooding killed over 300 residents in three villages in northwestern Buner district.
Floods have killed more than 800 people in Pakistan since late June.
Scientists say climate change is fueling heavier monsoon rains in South Asia, raising fears of a repeat of a 2022 weather disaster that struck a third of Pakistan and killed 1,739 people.
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Ahmed reported from Islamabad and Saaliq reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writer Babar Dogar contributed from Lahore, Pakistan.
Munir Ahmed And Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press
