Over 150 people are still missing after devastating flooding in northwest Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Anguished Pakistanis searched remote areas for bodies swept away by weekend flash floods as the death toll reached 277 on Monday, while one official replied to the lack of evacuation warnings by saying people should have built homes elsewhere.

A changing climate has made residents of northern Pakistan’s river-carved mountainous areas more vulnerable to sudden, heavy rains.

More than 150 people were still missing in the district of Buner in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after Friday’s flash floods.

Villagers have said there had been no warning broadcast from mosque loudspeakers, a traditional method for alerting emergencies in remote areas. The government has said the sudden downpour was so intense that the deluge struck before residents could be informed.

Emergency services spokesman Mohammad Suhail said three bodies were found on Monday. The army has deployed engineers and heavy machinery to clear the rubble.

On Sunday, provincial chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur said many deaths could have been avoided if residents had not built homes along waterways. He said the government would encourage displaced families to relocate to safer areas, where they would be assisted in rebuilding homes.

Residents said they were not living near streams, yet the flood swept through their homes. In Buner’s Malak Pur village, Ikram Ullah, aged 55, said people’s ancestral homes were destroyed even though they were not near the stream, which emerged in the area because of the flood. He said large boulders rolled down from mountains with the flood.

In flood-hit Pir Baba village, Shaukat Ali, 57, a shopkeeper whose grocery store was swept away, said his business was not near a river or stream but had stood for years alongside hundreds of other shops in the bazar. “We feel hurt when someone says we suffered because of living along the waterways,” Ali told The Associated Press.

Pakistan has seen higher-than-normal monsoon rains since June 26 that have killed at least 645 people across the country, with 400 deaths in the northwest. The National Disaster Management Authority issued an alert for further flooding after new rains began Sunday in many parts of the country.

In a statement, the military said the Pakistan Air Force played a key role in flood relief operations by airlifting 48 tons of NGO-provided relief goods from the port of Karachi to Peshawar, the regional capital. It said the air force established an air bridge to ensure the swift delivery of supplies.

On Monday, torrential rains triggered a flash flood that struck Darori village in northwestern Swabi district, killing 15 people, government official Awais Babar said.

He said rescuers evacuated nearly 100 people, mostly women and children, who had taken refuge on the roofs of homes. Disaster management officials said the floods inundated streets in other districts in the northwest and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a high-level meeting Monday to review relief efforts in flood-hit areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as northern Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

At the meeting, officials estimated flood-related damages to public and private property at more than 126 million rupees ($450,000), according to a government statement.

The U.N. humanitarian agency said it had mobilized groups in hard-hit areas where damaged roads and communication lines have cut off communities. Relief agencies were providing food, water and other aid.

Flooding has also hit India-administered Kashmir, where at least 67 people were killed and dozens remain missing after flash floods swept through the region during an annual Hindu pilgrimage last week.

In 2022, catastrophic floods linked to climate change killed nearly 1,700 people in Pakistan and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

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Associated Press writers Ishfaq Hussain in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan; Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.