Lightning and heavy rains have killed at least 24 people across Pakistan in the past three days, Pakistani media reported.
Most people were killed and injured when lightning struck farmers harvesting wheat and rains caused houses to collapse in eastern Punjab province, said Arfan Katia, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority. He also said more rains are expected this week.
The rains that hit the capital Islamabad killed seven people in the southwestern province of Balochistan over the weekend and eight others in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan. Baluchistan authorities have declared a state of emergency.
20 of the country’s 34 provinces have been hit by heavy rains following an unusually dry winter season that dried up the terrain and forced farmers to postpone sowing.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered authorities to provide humanitarian aid to rain-affected regions. He said the rains would improve Pakistan’s water reservoirs, but expressed concern over the deaths and destruction.
Heavy flooding caused by seasonal rains in Afghanistan has killed 33 people and injured 27 others over the past three days, according to Abdullah Janan Saiq, a Taliban spokesman in the state disaster management ministry.
About 200 livestock died and more than 600 houses were damaged or destroyed. The flooding also damaged large areas of farmland and more than 85 kilometres (53 miles) of roads, he said. The Taliban spokesman also said Afghan authorities had provided assistance to nearly 23,000 families.
At least 25 people were killed in a landslide following heavy snowfall in eastern Afghanistan in February, while about 60 people died in a three-week series of rainfall events that ended in March.
Last year, the UN warned that “Afghanistan is experiencing severe fluctuations in extreme weather conditions.”
