“DOOMSDAY” MONSOON
The monsoon season brings South Asia about three-quarters of its annual rainfall, vital for agriculture and food security, but it also brings destruction.
Landslides and flash floods are common during the season, which usually begins in June and eases by the end of September.
Syed Muhammad Tayyab Shah, a representative of the national disaster agency, told AFP that this year’s monsoon season began earlier than usual and was expected to end later.
“The next 15 days … the intensity of the monsoon will further exacerbate,” he said.
One resident likened the disaster to “doomsday”.
“I heard a loud noise as if the mountain was sliding. I rushed outside and saw the entire area shaking, like it was the end of the world,” Azizullah, a resident of Buner district, where there have been dozens of deaths and injuries, told AFP.
“I thought it was doomsday,” he said.
“The ground was trembling due to the force of the water, and it felt like death was staring me in the face.”
In Bajaur, a tribal district abutting Afghanistan, a crowd gathered around an excavator digging through a mud-soaked hill.
On Friday, funeral prayers began in a paddock nearby, with people grieving in front of several bodies covered by blankets.
The torrential rains that have pounded Pakistan since the start of the summer monsoon, described as “unusual” by authorities, have killed more than 600 people.
In July, Punjab, home to nearly half of Pakistan’s 255 million people, recorded 73 per cent more rainfall than the previous year and more deaths than in the entire previous monsoon.
Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, and its population is contending with extreme weather events with increasing frequency.
Monsoon floods in 2022 submerged a third of the country and killed around 1,700 people.
Another villager in Buner told AFP locals kept on searching through the rubble throughout the night.
“The entire area is reeling from profound trauma,” 32-year-old local schoolteacher Saifullah Khan told AFP.
“We still have no clear idea who in this small village is alive and who is dead,” he added.
“I help retrieve the bodies of the children I taught, I keep wondering what kind of trial nature has imposed on these kids.”
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