Heavy rains, flooding kill dozens in Pakistan, India

Dozens of people have been killed as a result of heavy monsoon rains and flooding in Pakistan and India.

Officials said on Thursday that roof collapses in buildings caused most of the deaths in Pakistan’s richest and most populous province of Punjab, with 14 people killed in the provincial capital Lahore.

“At least 28 people have been killed in different incidents of roof collapses in Punjab Province during the last 24 hours,” Jam Sajjad, a spokesman for rescue services said.

The dead included women and children, and 28 people have been injured, he added.

The injured are being taken to hospitals, said Rizwan Naseer, the director general of rescue services in Punjab, noting, “We have been removing the debris to search for survivors and the injured.”

The death toll is expected to rise as authorities are receiving more information from around the province.

In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, 10 people also lost their lives and four others were injured, according to disaster management agency chairman Akram Sohail.

Meanwhile, flood waters swept an overcrowded bus carrying a wedding party into a gorge with all but six of the 50 on board feared dead in the Indian- administered Kashmir.

“Six passengers managed to swim to safety and they were rescued from the gorge,” director general of police, Rajendra Kumar said.

Heavy rains that hit the region in the last 24 hours and strong gushing waters in the deep gorge have thwarted attempts to search for any survivors, police said.

Hundreds of villages across the Kashmir Valley have been hit by flooding, which has killed at least 16 people.

Pakistan’s meteorological office has warned that more heavy rain and thunderstorms could hit Punjab and the north of the country in the coming 72 hours and could cause flooding in major rivers.

Nearly 200 people were killed and around 1.5 million affected by flooding around Pakistan in 2013.