India Pakistan flood death toll from heavy monsoon rains passes 200

September 2014 – PAKISTAN – More than 200 people have been killed in flooding caused by heavy rain across large swathes of India and Pakistan, reports say. At least 110 people were killed by downpours in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and Punjab, officials said. About 100 people also died in Indian-administered Kashmir, as the floodwaters washed away houses and triggered landslides, officials said. The region is suffering from its worst flooding in two decades. On Thursday, a bus carrying about 50 members of a wedding party in Indian-administered Kashmir was swept into a gorge, killing dozens. The bride and groom were among those feared dead. The full extent of the region’s death toll is not clear. On Saturday, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, told local media that “close to 100 lives” had been lost. However, local media reported that up to 120 people in the state had been killed in the floods, including at least 14 killed by landslides. Mr. Abdullah said that the army had been requisitioned to help in rescue efforts. “Now that the rain has eased, we hope that water levels will start going down,” he said.

More than 2,000 people have been marooned by the floods and required rescue in the past five days, the Times of India newspaper reported. Meanwhile, Ahmad Kamal, a spokesman for Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, said that 100 people had died in Pakistani-administered Kashmir when the roofs of their homes collapsed. Forty people were killed by the floods in Pakistan’s Punjab province alone, Dawn newspaper reported. Much of the city of Lahore was submerged by floods, with houses leveled by the rain, the newspaper added. Pakistan regularly witnesses severe floods during monsoon season. –BBC