Pakistan, India hit by deadly flooding

Indian residents wade through floodwaters in Jawahar Nagar colony in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state, on August 23.

Dozens of people have died in Pakistan and India's northern Rajasthan state amid flash floods and landslides caused by heavy monsoon rains, officials said Thursday.

At least 21 deaths are confirmed in Pakistan, said Maj. Iftikhar Ahmed Taj of the National Disaster Management Authority.

Hundreds of homes have been damaged in the flooding, which has hit parts of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, he said.

Rescue workers are seeking to deal with a major landslide in the Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad, according to the disaster agency.

Roads are blocked, some 390 houses have been damaged and an unknown number of people are dead and injured, the agency said. Some families trapped by the landslide have been given emergency food and water supplies.

 

The villages, lives broken by Pakistan floods

Elsewhere in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, seven people were killed in Bagh by a flash flood and a landslide, while more than 100 houses were damaged in Koti, the disaster agency said.

More rainfall is on the way in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, some isolated places in northeast Balochistan, and the country's capital, Islamabad, according to the agency.

Clean-up also was under way Thursday in neighboring India, where heavy rain in Rajasthan left 20 dead, the Rajasthan state department told CNN. Ten died in the capital, Jaipur, it said.

Relief work is under way to help the hundreds of people made homeless by the flooding, which followed three or four days of heavy rain, the state department said.

Rajasthan Gov. Margaret Alva visited the affected area Thursday and spoke with people living in the slums of Madrampura Basti, the local government said in a statement.

She directed local authorities to make sure water is pumped out of people's homes and food and drinking water are made available, it said.

Meanwhile, Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf expressed his regret to those affected by the floods.

He released a statement directing government agencies to monitor river levels and take action to prevent any from bursting their banks.

The prime minister also instructed authorities to check that the early warning system for people living near rivers is kept up to date, and urged disaster management agencies to ensure they are fully prepared to respond.

Deadly clashes erupt in northwest Pakistan

 

A deadly clash between government forces and Taliban militants erupted in Pakistan's restive tribal belt Tuesday, marking continued unrest in the Orakzai district -- an area government officials last year claimed they had largely pacified.

Pakistani Army Col. Asif Khan said 35 militants and two security force members were killed as a result of the fighting in the district, located west of the provincial capital of Peshawar.

Sixteen other security personnel were injured, he said.

A second Pakistani official estimated lower numbers of militants killed, putting the death toll at 20, while saying 21 service members had been injured.

The clash occurred after Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout in the ethnic Pashtun-dominated area, the official said, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak with the media.

A spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella militant group that operates in the region, said the group took responsibility for the attack, claiming it was in retaliation for an earlier government operation.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the Pakistani Taliban spokesman, said five soldiers were killed during the clashes.

He denied that any militants died in the attacks, but said 15 were injured.

In 2011, the government announced that it had largely cleared the area of militants following a major military operation. But officials recently acknowledged that the Taliban actually still maintains pockets of control.

Militants are believed to have found sanctuary in Orakzai after being routed in government military operations in South Waziristan -- a volatile mountainous region that borders Afghanistan.

Hakimullah Mehsud, who assumed leadership of the Pakistani Taliban in 2009, is also believed to have supporters in Orakzai, stemming from when he worked as a militant commander in the area.

Mehsud got Washington's attention after he claimed responsibility for organizing a deadly suicide attack against a CIA base in southern Afghanistan in December 2009.

The region has long been considered a staging ground for Taliban attacks against Pakistani security forces as well as NATO and Afghan troops in southern and eastern Afghanistan.