BUNER: Residents of Buner district where devastating floods have killed more than 200 people said on Monday they were too scared to go back to their deluged homes as authorities warned of more rains to come.”Everybody is scared. Children are scared. They cannot sleep,” said Sahil Khan, a 24-year-old university student.
He was speaking to a Reuters team from a rooftop in the district of Buner, where he and 15 other villagers had climbed to escape any more flooding amid a fresh spell of rain on Monday.”It was like a doomsday scenario,” he said of the flash floods caused by heavy rains and cloudbursts that, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, have killed at least 341 people in the northwest since Friday – more than 200 of them in Buner.
The fatalities include 28 women and 21 children, it said.The intense rain has claimed lives and spread destruction in several northern districts, with most people killed in flash floods, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
In hilly areas, the floods washed away houses, buildings, vehicles and belongings.Buner district was the worst hit in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Khan and other residents in Buner’s Bayshonai Kalay village fled to higher ground when a water channel that had earlier overflowed and caused major devastation started swelling with more rain on Monday, according to Reuters witnesses.He and several other residents said most of the villagers were staying with relatives or in makeshift camps set up by local authorities on higher ground.
Rescuers were finding it difficult to get heavy machinery into narrow streets.In Buner’s main markets and streets, shops and houses were buried in up to five feet of mud, which locals were clearing with shovels. Elsewhere, cars and other belongings were strewn in the rubble of ruined buildings.