ISLAMABAD: Authorities have issued a flood alert for parts of Pakistan’s Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan provinces, Pakistani state media reported on Saturday, amid heavy monsoon showers in the South Asian country.
Torrential rains in Pakistan have killed at least 30 people this week as the second-largest city of Lahore was drenched in the most rainfall it has received in more than four decades, according to authorities.
The arrival of the monsoon season has sparked floods and landslides across South Asia in the past week, with at least 200 killed and almost 200 missing in one disaster in neighboring India.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued a flood alert for Punjab’s Dera Ghazi Khan division, Zhob, Sibbi, Naseerabad and Kalat in Balochistan, and Larkana and Hyderabad divisions in Sindh.
“Medium to High Level Flash Flooding is expected up to Monday,” the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported. “NDMA has issued instructions to all relevant departments to take necessary precautions to mitigate the possible effects of flooding and extreme weather.”
Rains pummelled Pakistan’s north, causing floods, building collapses and heightening the risk of electrocution this week.
“The 44-year-old rainfall record was broken in Lahore once again,” said utility officials in the eastern province of Punjab, where authorities tallied six deaths.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12 children were among the two dozen people who died in the last three days of rains and floods in the northwestern province, according to the provincial disaster management authority.
Pakistan is recognized as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change effects in the world. This year, the South Asian country recorded its “wettest April since 1961,” with 59.3 millimeters rainfall and at least 144 deaths in thunderstorms and house collapses, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to the authorities.
In June, a UN official warned that an estimated 200,000 people in Pakistan could be affected by the upcoming monsoon season, which is expected to bring heavier rains than usual.
The United Nations, with help from local authorities, has prepared a contingency plan, with $40 million set aside to respond to any emergencies, said Mohamed Yahya, the newly appointed Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan.
Unusually heavy rains in June 2022 triggered flash floods in many parts of the country, killing over 1,700 people, inflicting losses of around $30 billion, and affecting at least 30 million people.
Authorities warn of flash floods in Pakistan’s Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan amid heavy rains
https://arab.news/26zsz
Authorities warn of flash floods in Pakistan’s Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan amid heavy rains
- Torrential rains killed at least 30 people in Pakistan this week, inundating the second-largest city of Lahore
- In June, a UN official warned an estimated 200,000 people in Pakistan could be affected this monsoon season
No casualties as blast derails Jaffar Express train in Pakistan’s south
- Passengers were stranded and railway staffers were clearing the track after blast, official says
- In March 2025, separatist militants hijacked the same train with hundreds of passengers aboard
QUETTA: A blast hit Jaffar Express and derailed four carriages of the passenger train in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday, officials said, with no casualties reported.
The blast occurred at the Abad railway station when the Peshawar-bound train was on its way to Sindh’s Sukkur city from Quetta, according to Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division controller Muhammad Kashif.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but passenger trains have often been targeted by Baloch separatist outfits in the restive Balochistan province that borders Sindh.
“Four bogies of the train were derailed due to the intensity of the explosion,” Kashif told Arab News. “No casualty was reported in the latest attack on passenger train.”
Another railway employee, who was aboard the train and requested anonymity, said the train was heading toward Sukkur from Jacobabad when they heard the powerful explosion, which derailed power van among four bogies.
“A small piece of the railway track has been destroyed,” he said, adding that passengers were now standing outside the train and railway staffers were busy clearing the track.
In March last year, fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group had stormed Jaffar Express with hundreds of passengers on board and took them hostage. The military had rescued them after an hours-long operation that left 33 militants, 23 soldiers, three railway staff and five passengers dead.
The passenger train, which runs between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and Peshawar in the country’s northwest, had been targeted in at least four bomb attacks last year since the March hijacking, according to an Arab News tally.
Pakistan Railways says it has beefed up security arrangements for passenger trains in the province and increased the number of paramilitary troops on Jaffar Express since the hijacking in March, but militants have continued to target them in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the site of a decades-long insurgency waged by Baloch separatist groups who often attack security forces and foreigners, and kidnap government officials.
The separatists accuse the central government of stealing the region’s resources to fund development elsewhere in the country. The Pakistani government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan.
