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  • Mar 5th, 2005
  • Comments Off on Torrential rains kill 10 in Balochistan
At least 10 people were killed on Friday in Balochistan after their mud-brick homes collapsed under torrential rains, pushing the death toll from recent bad weather to 24, police said. Two women and three children perished in Kili Nausar, on the outskirts of Quetta, "when the roof caved in due to incessant rain", police officer Aminullah Khilji told AFP. The deceased included Gul Seeka, her sister Sakina and three children Rehmatullah, Samiullah and Najeebullah. The head of the family Nassebullah and his one-year-old son escaped unhurt.

Five more people, including a three year-old girl, died in the town of Chaman on the Afghan border after the roof of their home collapsed in heavy rains, District Nazim Salahuddin Achakzai told AFP.

The vital road link between Pakistan and Afghanistan had also been badly damaged by landslides in the nearby Kojak Pass and a severe shortage of supplies was feared in the area, he said.

Local parliamentarian Majid Khan told AFP that two small dams in the area had started overflowing, putting hundreds of people at risk.

The latest rains come at the end of a bitter winter in which at least 550 people have died from torrential rain, snow and avalanches.

The Army on Friday used helicopters for relief work near Gwadar Port as roads had been washed away by flooding, government spokesman Raziq Bugti told AFP.

Gwadar's airport remained closed for a third day due to flooding, but in the evening some small planes flew out, he said.

Bugti said the recent spell of rain had damaged nearly 3,000 homes and dislocated around 25,000 people in Balochistan. Some 1,400 animals were dead or missing.

The UN refugee agency has also sent tents to provide temporary shelters to Afghan refugees whose homes were damaged by rain in the area, a statement said.

Dam bursts and floods in Balochistan last month left an estimated 85 people dead.

Five people were killed in Chaman and Mastung and one in Dukki on Thursday while two each in Dera Murad Jamali and Taftan on last Wednesday.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005


Copyright Associated Press of Pakistan, 2005


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