At least 280 people killed by sudden floods in India and Pakistan, with still missing scores

The sudden floods triggered by torrential rains have killed more than 280 people and left dozens of other missing in India and Pakistan in the past 24 hours, the rescuers had raised some 1,600 people from two mountainous districts of neighboring countries on Friday.

In Pakistan, a helicopter carrying rescue supplies in the northwest district of Bajaur struck by the floods crashed on Friday due to the bad weather, killing the five people on board, including two pilots, according to a government statement.

Sudden and intense showers in small areas, known as clouds, are increasingly common in the Himalayan regions of India and areas of northern Pakistan, which are subject to sudden floods and landslides. Cloud explosions have the potential to wreak havoc by causing intense floods and landslides, which has an impact on thousands of people in mountainous regions.

Experts claim that clouds have increased in recent years in recent years due to climate change, while the damage caused by storms have also increased due to unforeseen development in mountain regions.

Dozens disappeared in the Himalayan village remote

On Friday, at the cashmere controlled by India, the rescuers looked for disappeared people in the Himalayan village of chositi after the sudden floods one day earlier at least 60 dead and at least 80 missing, officials said.

Officials interrupted rescue operations overnight, but saved at least 300 people on Thursday after a powerful Cloudburst sparked floods and landslides. Officials said many people who have disappeared.

Harvinder Singh, a local resident, joined rescue efforts immediately after the disaster and helped recover 33 bodies of sub-cuts, he said.

At least 50 seriously injured people were treated in local hospitals, many of which saved a stream filled with mud and debris. The head of disaster management, Mohammed Irshad, said that the number of disappeared people could increase.

Meteorological managers provide more heavy rains and floods in the region.

Chositi, in the Kishtwar district of Kashmir, is the last village accessible to motor vehicles on the road to an annual Hindu pilgrimage to an mountainous sanctuary at an altitude of 3,000 meters.

The officials said that the pilgrimage, which started on July 25 and was to end on September 5, was suspended.

The devastating floods have swept the main community cuisine set up for pilgrims, as well as dozens of vehicles and motorcycles. More than 200 pilgrims were in the kitchen at the time of the flood, which also damaged or swept away many houses grouped into the buttresses, officials said.

Sneha, who gave only one name, said that her husband and a daughter had been swept away while flood waters gushed to the mountain. The two had a meal in community cooking while she and her son were nearby. The family had come for the pilgrimage, she said.

Photos and videos on social networks have significant damage, household items strewn next to vehicles and damaged houses in the village. The authorities made makeshift bridges on Friday to help the pilgrims blocked to cross a muddy water channel and used dozens of equipment to move rocks, uprooted trees, electric posts and other debris.

The Kishtwar district is home to multiple hydroelectric energy projects, which experts have long warned a threat to the fragile ecosystem of the region.

Hundreds of tourists trapped by floods in Pakistan

In north and northwest Pakistan, sudden floods have killed at least 243 people in the last 24 hours, including 157 people who died in the Buner district struck in northwest Pakistan on Friday.

Mohammad Suhail, a spokesperson for the provincial emergency service, told the Associated Press that dozens of people were still missing and that rescue operations were underway.

He said that 78 bodies had been found in various parts of the district here in noon, and 79 others were removed from the rubble of collapsed houses and flooded villages later.

“The number of deaths can increase because we are still looking for dozens of missing people,” said Suhail.

Dozens were injured while the flood destroyed houses in the villages of Buner, where the authorities declared the state of emergency on Friday. The ambulances have transported more than 100 organizations to hospitals, according to a government statement.

The helicopter who crashed on Friday was on a rescue mission when he fell into the northwest, said provincial minister Ali Amin Gandapur.

According to local officials. The last deaths have the total number of deaths related to the rain at 556 since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

Deaths were reported in different parts of Pakistan on Thursday. Bilal Faizi, spokesperson for the provincial emergency service in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that rescuers worked for hours to save 1,300 tourists after being trapped by sudden floods and landscaped landslides in the Manshra district on Thursday.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, at an emergency meeting, ordered the disaster management authority to ensure the evacuation of tourists and all those affected by floods.

The Gilgit-Baltistan region has been struck by several floods since July, triggering landslides along the Karakoram road, a commercial and key travel route connecting Pakistan and China which is used by tourists to go to the north. The region is home to picturesque glaciers which offer 75% of the stored water supply of Pakistan.

During the summer, when schools are closed for more than two months, hundreds of thousands of people go to picturesque destinations in north and northwest Pakistan. This year, despite repeated government warnings on landslides and sudden floods, many have still visited popular stations in the areas affected by floods. Officials said the rescuers had evacuated nearly 2,000 tourists from the rain -hit regions and floods in safer places in the last 24 hours.

The Pakistan disaster management agency has published new alerts for floods on the gaps of the glacial lake in the north, warning travelers to avoid affected areas.

A study published this week by global meteorological allocation, a network of international scientists, found that precipitation in Pakistan from June 24 to July 23 were 10 to 15% heavier due to global warming. In 2022, the worst monsoon season in the registered country killed more than 1,700 people and caused around 40 billion dollars in damage.

Look | Six members of a family missing in the landslide:

Six members of a missing family in India

A mother and a father tell when they learned the sudden flood and the landslide that struck the village of Himalayas in Dharali on Tuesday – and how they talked with one of their children before the telephone connection was lost and they no longer heard.