Over 350 Dead in Less Than a Week as Monsoon Flooding Continues to Ravage Communities: 'Everybody Is Scared'

NEED TO KNOW

• In the last four days, about 360 people have died across Pakistan from monsoon flooding, officials said

• "Everybody is scared," one resident said

• "My heartfelt condolences go out to the bereaved families. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in this hour of grief," Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X

About 360 people have died in just four days across Pakistan as the nation continues to face devastating monsoon flooding, officials said.

The latest tally by the country's National Disaster Management Authority indicates 660 people across the country have died between June 26 and Monday, Aug. 18, as the summertime monsoon season, typically stretching from June to September, rolls on, Al Jazeera noted.

In addition to drowning, the agency has said that the victims are dying from lightning strikes and in housing collapses.

"Everybody is scared. Children are scared. They cannot sleep," Sahil Khan, 24, told Reuters after he scrambled to a rooftop to escape the waters on Monday.

Khan described flash flooding in the hard-hit Buner region as "a doomsday scenario." In that northwestern area alone, a local authority said about 209 people were missing as of Sunday, Aug. 17, the BBC reported.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X that he has directed the chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority to expedite rescue operations in the impacted districts, including Swat, Buner, Bajaur, Torghar, Mansehra, Shangla and Battagram.

"I am deeply anguished by the devastation caused by cloudbursts and flash floods in KP and northern Pakistan," he wrote on social media on Saturday, Aug. 16. "My heartfelt condolences go out to the bereaved families. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in this hour of grief. The Government is mobilizing all resources for rescue and relief operations."

"It all happened before my eyes," Bunar resident Asrar Khan told the BBC of the devastation he witnessed. "The water was so strong, it had no mercy on anyone."

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