More than 200 people remain missing in one district in northwestern Pakistan as a result of catastrophic monsoon flooding and landslides, officials said, the BBC reported.
Flash floods have recently killed more than 300 people in Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
Local officials in the worst-affected Banner area told the BBC that at least 209 people are still missing, but fears that the number will increase.
Jaehangil Khan, a spokesman for the Deputy Chief of Banner’s Office, buried eight unidentified bodies as the family members who discovered rescuers were alive were not known to be alive.
Some relatives are also unable to claim relative groups due to severe road damage, he added.
A state rescue spokesman told news agency AFP that “all 10 to 12 villages” had been partially buried.
Asfandial Hatak, director of the state’s disaster management department, said “dozens” of people were missing in the Shangra district.
Monsoon rains from June to September provide about three-quarters of South Asia’s annual rainfall.
Landslides and flash floods are common as a result, but scientists say climate change makes these weather phenomena more intense and frequent.
The heavy rain also collided with India-controlled Kashmir days after flash floods killed at least 60 people there.
Nine people died this week in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and five more died in the northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan, authorities said.
Government forecasters say heavy rain is expected to be expected until August 21st in the northwest, where several areas have been declared disaster zones.
Pakistan has been taking into account the devastation of this year’s monsoon season since June. At least 650 people have died so far this year.
In July, Punjab, a base of nearly half of Pakistan’s 255 million people, recorded 73% more rainfall than the previous year, and more deaths than the previous entire monsoon season.
Northern Pakistan is also one of the region’s most glacial regions, but it is rapidly thinning and retreating due to climate change.
Monsoon rain makes the mountain’s face even more unstable and sometimes exacerbate the landslides that block the river.
The exact cause of recent floods and landslides has not yet been determined, but glaciologists say ice melts are a contributing factor.