More than 120 killed in heavy flooding in Pakistan, Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Heavy rains that caused flash floods and collapsed houses have killed 53 people across Pakistan over the past three days, a Pakistani official said Monday.

Civil and military authorities have launched rescue and relief efforts to deal with the crisis, said Brig. Kamran Zia, a senior member of the National Disaster Management Authority.

In neighboring Afghanistan, the same storm system hit in the eastern part of the country, leveling homes and killing at least 69 people in five provinces since Saturday, Afghan relief official Mohammad Daim Kakar said Monday.

The deaths in Pakistan include 12 people killed in the semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest, eight in neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and three in the Pakistan-held part of the disputed Kashmir region. Twelve people died in central Punjab province, 10 in southwestern Baluchistan and eight in southern Sindh.

Flooding was especially bad in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, because of the southern city’s faulty drainage system, Zia said.

The region regularly suffers from flooding during the monsoon season, which usually runs through July and August.

Pakistan suffered the worst floods in its 66-year history in 2010, when a fifth of the country was inundated, killing over 1,700 people. More than 20 million people were affected at the time.

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