ISLAMABAD: At least 30 people were killed and 38 injured in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province due to monsoon rains this week, KP’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said on Thursday.
The authority also warned residents of Nowshera and Charsadda, who live near rivers flowing through the two districts, to take necessary precautionary measures.
“118 houses partially while 15 were completely destroyed because of rains,” the PMDA said in a statement.
“Relief and rescue work is underway in flood and rain affected areas,” it added.
Monsoon rains have continued to lash different KP districts, including Buner, Shangla, Kohistan and Swat, said the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
Dozens of people have been killed across Pakistan in rains and floods since June this year.
According to the NDMA data released on Wednesday, 189 people were killed and 128 injured in rain-related incidents between June 15 and August 31.
The southern Sindh province has been the worst-hit where 72 people died during the same period. KP also lost 61 of its residents.
In a recent alert, the NDMA said that due to high water level in “Mangla Reservoir (1,242.00 feet) and Tarbela Dam (1.550 feet) along with expected rains over the upper catchments of all the major rivers,” discharge of surplus water from the two dams could become necessary.
It also urged “all relevant district administrations to sensitize the population residing near river banks along Chenab and Jhelum and take necessary precautionary measures.”
30 killed amid heavy rainfall in northwest Pakistan this week
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30 killed amid heavy rainfall in northwest Pakistan this week
- Relief and rescue work underway in flood and rain affected areas, says the PDMA
- Monsoon rains have continued to lash different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this week
Rating firm S&P says it won’t rush Iran war downgrades, sees risks for countries like Pakistan
- Agency says it is monitoring indebted energy importers as higher oil prices strain finances
- Gulf economies seen better placed to weather shock, though Bahrain flagged as vulnerable
LONDON: S&P Global said it would not make any knee-jerk sovereign rating cuts following the outbreak of war in the Middle East, but warned on Thursday that soaring oil and gas prices were putting a number of already cash-strapped countries at risk.
The firm’s top analysts said in a webinar that the conflict, which has involved US and Israeli strikes against Iran and Iranian strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, was now moving from a low- to moderate-risk scenario.
Most Gulf countries had enough fiscal buffers, however, to weather the crisis for a while, with more lowly rated Bahrain the only clear exception.
Qatar’s banking sector could also struggle if there were significant deposit outflows in reaction to the conflict, although there was no evidence of such strains at the moment, they said.
“We don’t want to jump the gun and just say things are bad,” S&P’s head global sovereign analyst, Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, said.
The longer the crisis was prolonged, though, “the more difficult it is going to be,” he added.
Sifon-Arevalo said Asia was the second-most exposed region, due to many of its countries being significant Gulf oil and gas importers.
India, Thailand and Indonesia have relatively lower reserves of oil, while the region also had already heavily indebted countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka whose finances would be further hurt by rising energy prices.
“We are closely monitoring these (countries) to see how the credit stories evolve,” Sifon-Arevalo said.
