Chitral floods: 903 evacuated to safety via Army helicopters

RAWALPINDI: 903 people stranded in flood-ravaged Chitral valley have been evacuated to safe areas by helicopter, the military's public relations wing ISPR said Wednesday.

59 tonnes of ration and food supplies have also been distributed to people in the affected areas, said ISPR.

The ISPR added that an Army medical camp has also been set up at the Chitral Scout Hospital where 1178 patients have so far been treated.

Over 12,000 litres of drinking water is also being distributed daily through four water bowsers of the Chitral Scouts, it said.

Torrential rains have destroyed infrastructure, sweeping away dozens of roads and bridges in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Related: Rains, floods kill 81 in Pakistan: NDMA

On Tuesday, the country’s disaster management authority said rains and flooding have killed 81 people across Pakistan over the past two weeks and affected almost 300,000.

Severe rains which began in mid-July have caused havoc in both the north and south of the country, damaging more than 1,900 houses and injuring dozens of people, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.

Every year Pakistan is hit by severe weather patterns, which have killed hundreds and wiped out millions of acres of prime farmland in recent years, harming the heavily agrarian economy.