On Sunday, when torrential rain battered various parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, roof collapse incidents occurred in Bajaur and Swat districts, resulting in three fatalities and ten injuries. In Bajaur, severe rain caused a house’s roof to collapse in the steep Gielle part of the district, killing two women and injuring five others, including four children. When Shah Wakeel Khan’s house fell, all seven individuals were sleeping in the same room, according to officials from Rescue 1122 and the district government. Beneath the rubble, they were buried.
After immediately providing them with first aid, Rescue 1122 personnel pulled them from the wreckage and transported them to the district headquarters hospital in Khar for medical attention. Doctors, however, pronounced two of them deceased. The wives of Shaukat Khan, age 34, and Luqman Khan, age 36, were recognized as the deceased. According to officials, the injured were receiving treatment at the hospital. Among them were Hamad Khan, 13, Fawad Khan, 10, Adnan Khan, 8, and Hina Bibi, 6. The injured also included Shah Wakeel’s 50-year-old wife.
In a similar event in the Mamund tehsil of Bajaur, in the Allmazo area, another woman was injured. The 25-year-old woman, Safia Bibi, was in her chamber when the ceiling collapsed from the intense downpour. Due to persistent rain that began on Friday afternoon, several homes and a wall collapsed in various parts of the district. Four people were hurt and one person died in Swat when a house’s roof fell in Meena Bazaar Brikot. Family members were buried beneath the rubble after the house’s roof collapsed on Sunday afternoon, according to Rescue 1122 Swat. Zakir, Sara, Sohail, and Gulisha were seriously injured in the incident, while Dawa Khan was slain. The wounded were sent to a hospital to receive care.
Swat still gets rain and snow, much like other parts of the nation. While rain battered the lowlands, heavy snow fell in Kalam, Matiltan, Gabral, and Utror. The meteorological agency has forecasted further snow and rain on Tuesday and Monday. In Shangla, the Karakoram Highway, Bisham-Swat Road, and other major thoroughfares were blocked by a hailstorm and intense rain. The district had rain for the third day in a row on Sunday, following a fresh spell that began on Friday. The area’s daily activities were halted by a hailstorm and intense rain, and the electrical supply was kept off.
According to the police, work was being done to clear debris off the Karakoram Highway, which was stopped in the Kunshi area close to the Khan Khawar power plant. The restoration and road clearance efforts are being hampered by heavy rain and hailstorms, Chakesar Assistant Commissioner Mohammad Hamid Saddiqui told Dawn. He stated that they had requested reopening the blocked routes from the Tehsil Municipal Administration and the Department of Works and Communication. He also said that rehabilitation activities would resume as soon as the rain stopped.
On Sunday, there was a noticeable high water flow in the nearby rivers and streams. The rain in the Hazara division started early in the morning and continued sporadically throughout the remainder of the day in Upper and Lower Kohistan, Mansehra, Torghar, Kolai-Palas, and Kohistan. Judbah-Thakot road in Torghar was closed to all forms of traffic when large rocks that had broken off from a neighboring mountain fell over it in the Spingar area. The district administration has been pressured by the locals to clear the artery, which connects Torghar to the Hazara Expressway and Karakoram Highway.
As it continued to rain heavily in some areas of the district for the second day in a row, Lower Dir saw disruptions to normal traffic on the roads and voting in polling places. Snow also fell in the hilly regions of Upper Dir, such as Lowari, Doog Dara, Kumrat, and Barawal Sar. Rainwater also found its way into Timergara marketplaces, causing local traders to suffer severe financial losses. Local businesses Syed Zahir Shah, Ajmal Khan, and others expressed dissatisfaction about the district government and tehsil municipal administration’s lack of action in unclogging the city’s clogged drains. They claimed that every time it rained, clogged drains caused rainwater from high-altitude communities to pour into the city and markets. They urged the administration to acknowledge the issue and resolve it soon. The chairman of the Dilbori village council, Ziaur Rehman, has expressed sympathy to the families of the three ranchers who were killed in Oghi the other day in a lighting incident. Additionally, he insisted that the government pay the grieving families’ expenses.
In addition, they sought just recompense for the impacted dealers. If the issue was not fixed in a week, they vowed to demonstrate against the administration. Farmers in Kohat suffered losses as a result of hail and rain damaging wheat, fruits, and vegetables in Kachai and the surrounding districts along Hangu Road. Farmers have requested that the government declare a package of aid for them. An elder from the community named Esar Bangash told Dawn that the region was well-known for producing wheat, plums, luqat, and grapes—all ruined by hail and rain. He added that their cattle’s feed had also been ruined. Due to excessive rain, two houses in South Waziristan collapsed, severely harming the wheat harvest.
Residents said that two houses—one in Angoor Adda, Birmal tehsil, and the other in Shakai tehsil—fell. They claimed that the district’s standing crops had suffered significant damage from the ongoing rain.
