26 killed as floods hit van carrying wedding party in Pak

Peshawar, July 30

Twenty-six people, including children and women, were killed and three others injured when a vehicle carrying a marriage party was swept away by flash floods in northwest Pakistan on Saturday.

The incident took place when the ill-fated vehicle was caught in flooding in Tabai area while travelling from Bara to Bazaar Zakha Khel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The dead include 18 children, six women and two men. The injured are all men, said Subedar Hikmat Khan Afridi, Line Officer Landi Kotal Khyber Agency.

Rescue teams have retrieved the bodies and shifted them to a hospital in Landi Kotal, an official said.

Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have badly affected Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in recent years.

The flooding has been linked by some scientists to climate change.

According to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), about 55 people have been killed and 35 others injured due to heavy rains in different parts of the country.

Annual spring and monsoon rains claim many lives each year in Pakistan, especially in rural areas where poorly built homes are susceptible to collapse.

Over 120 people were killed in rains and landslides killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan region in April.

Over 80 people were killed and almost 300,000 affected due to heavy rains       last summer in Pakistan.

Nearly 2,000 people were killed and millions others badly affected in the worst flooding in 2010 that covered almost a fifth of the country's total land mass. — PTI