MANSEHRA: Four friends lost their lives on Friday, while one survived after being stuck in floods for three continuous hours in the Sanagai area of Lower Kohistan District.
According to the residents of the area, the five victims climbed on a rock to save themselves after being surrounded by heavy flooding.
The victims waited for help, however, no rescue team arrived to save them, and they were eventually swept away by the high-pressure flood water.
The locals of the area said that a helicopter could have arrived from Peshawar or Gilgit in an hour if the administration wanted. They tried saving them by pulling them with the help of a rope, however, they could only save one out of five.
They said that they could only rescue one victim while the rest four were swept away in floods, adding that they only recovered one of the bodies out of four.
The video of the incident has been going viral on social media, and netizens have expressed their anger over the administration's failure to not rescue the victims.
Earlier today, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government declared an emergency in Swat after the scale of devastation caused by extreme flooding in the district reached out of control following record rains.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has declared an emergency in Swat after the scale of devastation caused by extreme flooding in the district reached out of control following record rains.
The state of emergency will be in effect until August 30 for relief efforts in flood-affected areas of Swat.
Historic monsoon rains and flooding in Pakistan have affected more than 30 million people over the last few weeks, the country's climate change minister said on Thursday, calling the situation a "climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions".
“Pakistan is going through its 8th cycle of monsoon; normally the country has only three to four cycles of [monsoon] rain,” the minister said during her news conference in Islamabad.
“Pakistan is under an unprecedented monsoon spell and data suggests the possibility of re-emergence of another cycle in September,”
Since mid-June, when the monsoon began, over 3,000 kilometers of road, 130 bridges and 495,000 homes have been damaged, according to NDMA's last situation report, figures also echoed in the O HCA report.
The government has declared devastating floods a “national emergency” after nearly 1,000 people died and more than 30 million are without shelter as monsoon rains continue to lash the South Asian nation.
At least 937 people have died since mid-June, including 343 children, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), with large swaths of the southwestern province of Balochistan remaining submerged, bringing back the memory of the devastating 2010 floods. More than half of the casualties are from Balochistan and southern Sindh province, where 234 and 306 people died respectively amid record rains that have affected half a million houses across the country.
The Government of Pakistan has earmarked PKR 35 billion (ca. US$173 million) to aid flood-affected people under the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), among other assistance.
Humanitarian partners are providing aid for flood-affected people even as weather and ground conditions inhibit access.
The humanitarian situation is expected to worsen as communities and infrastructure are increasingly unable to cope with ongoing heavy rainfall.
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