Walking to his local mosque in
northern Pakistan, Abdul Samad cast worried looks at a stream he had never
seen so agitated
and chocked with debris. When he stepped outside again 10 minutes later, the mountain
village that was his lifelong home had been nearly erased.
Swollen by pummeling rainfall, the
stream turned into a roaring torrent that swept mud, rocks and fallen trees
through the village of Beshonai on Friday, crushing, burying or washing
away everything in its path. Out of 210 homes, only 25 remain standing, according
to local officials.
“House, fields of maize—everything
was gone,” said Samad, an imam in his
mid-40s. His wife and daughter were swept away with the family home and killed.
The monsoon season, once revered as
a source of life and renewal, has brought death and devastation across
large parts of Pakistan, a South Asian nation of 250 million people. Monsoons
have killed more than 900 people nationwide since the season began in late June.
This increasingly frequent pattern is forcing Pakistan to reckon with
a new reality: Destruction brought by extreme weather has become the norm, not
the exception.
Beshonai, in Buner district, is one of
dozens of northern villages devastated by rains so heavy and sudden that
flash flooding caught officials and communities off guard.
The highest toll has been recorded in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province bordering Afghanistan, where flooding has killed
at least 365 people since Thursday. Buner district suffered the worst devastation,
with at least 225 confirmed deaths.
Pakistan’s troubles redoubled Tuesday, as floodwaters
flowed southward, inundating more areas. The port city
of Karachi, the country’s economic hub with more than 20 million people, was
paralyzed, as residents waded through water that was shoulder-deep in some streets.
The floods are the most devastating
Pakistan had endured since 2022, when record monsoon rains killed 1,700 people
and submerged
a third of the country.
The country’s authorities have faced
growing criticism for not doing enough to save lives. Critics say they have let
deforestation go unchecked, worsening the impact of floods, and have failed to
create effective early warning systems.
Pakistan’s disaster management officials said they sent all the early warnings they could. But many areas have scant access to the internet, and in Beshonai and other places, people said the warnings from local mosques and police stations came late. (Zia ur-Rehman and Elian Peltier)
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