Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have killed more than 280 people and left scores of others missing in India and Pakistan over the past 24 hours, officials said Friday, as rescuers brought to safety some 1,600 people from two mountainous districts in the neighbouring countries.
In Pakistan, a helicopter carrying relief supplies to the flood-hit northwestern Bajaur district crashed on Friday due to bad weather, killing all five people on board, including two pilots, a government statement said.
Sudden, intense downpours over small areas, known as cloudbursts, are increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions and Pakistan’s northern areas, which are prone to flash floods and landslides. Cloudbursts have the potential to wreak havoc by causing intense flooding and landslides, impacting thousands of people in the mountainous regions.
Experts say cloudbursts have increased in recent years partly because of climate change, while damage from the storms also has increased because of unplanned development in mountain regions.
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Author: Marty Kaufmann
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