RAWALPINDI: As many as 45 people - 27 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and 18 in the Rawalpindi region - were killed in separate rain-related incidents on Friday.

Officials based in different areas of AJK told Dawn that 13 deaths had been reported from the Sudhnoti district, six each from Kotli and Haveli districts and two from the Poonch district due to house collapse, landsliding and drowning. Prior to that, 14 people were killed since September 1.

In Namb Pariyan village of Sudhnoti district, six members of a family - Hafiz Imtiaz, his wife Bilqees Akhtar, daughters Saiqa, Rawaiqa, Saira and son Mumtaz - died and three others injured after their house was struck by a huge rock.

In Ain Pana village of Sudhnoti district, Javed Iqbal, his wife Abida Begum and brother-in-law Fayaz and Javeria lost their lives in two incidents of house collapse.

Most of the casualties were caused by house collapse and drowning

Also in Sudhnoti, Halima Begum died in Mang village due to house collapse while Husn Jan and Saiqa died in Bata Kot village after their house was struck by a landslide.

In the Kotli district, two-year-old Uzma Kosar died in Jangpur Khwaz village, Farah, 4, her sister Noor, 2, and Mohammad Fayyaz, 14, died in Nain Sukh village, all due to house collapse. Sartaj Khan, 30, a resident of Mohmand Agency, was swept away by Nullah Ban, while Nabila, 17, was swept away by another torrent in Sehnsa. Some 13 people were injured in different areas of district.

In Rawalakot, Mohammad Yousuf and Mohammad Mustafa were killed by landslides in Hajira and Thorar areas, respectively.

In Haveli district, three brothers - Tasawwar, 14, Tuseef, 11, and Taufeeq, 8, - were killed in the dead of night after their house was struck by a landslide.

In the same district, three other persons were swept away by flash floods but only one of them could be identified as Azmat Bibi after her body was retrieved.

Mohammad Irfan and his wife Bushra, who were settled in the UK, were travelling in a car from Gujar Khan to their native village of Mohrah Adrian in tehsil Kallar Syedan on Thursday night when they were swept away while crossing a bridge over a flooded stream near Smote.

The body of Irfan was recovered by local volunteers after 12 hours while his wife was still missing.

Three milkmen were killed when a landslide triggered by rains buried their mud house along the Adiala Road in Rawalpindi. The deceased were identified as Jamal Ahmed, 24, Zaheer Abbas, 28, and Farhan Ahmed, 45.

Another man, Mohammad Tanveer, was killed when the roof of his house collapsed on him in the limits of the Chontra police.

Bilal Khan, 45, the employee of a CNG station, was killed while his two co-workers - Azeem Ahmed and Suleman - were injured after the wall of the filling station fell on their house at Morgah.

Mohammad Usman, a former policeman, drowned in a stream near the Manaka village of Gujar Khan tehsil while Aleema Bibi, 35, was killed and her seven-year-old son Saim injured when the roof of their house caved in at a village in Mandra.

In separate roof collapse incidents, a teenage boy, Atif Rasheed, and a woman, identified as Tasleem, lost their lives in the limits of the Jatli police.

The bodies of six people, who drowned in a nullah after the collapse of a bridge at G.T. Road in Dina, Jhelum, on Thursday, were recovered on Friday.

Five of the deceased were identified as Naveed Tariq, Mohammad Nadeem, Mudasar Sajid, Mahjabeen and Sambreen, while the body of an identified man has been kept at the district headquarters hospital Jhelum.In the Chakwal district, one person was killed when a pick-up vain was swept away in the flooded water of Nullah Bhinao near Takia Shah Murad village. Six other people travelling in the vehicle were rescued by Rescue 1122. The deceased was identified as Atif Manzoor, 18.

Fiza Bibi, 16, was killed after a wall collapsed on her near Murree. The rain also damaged many houses and blocked roads in the hilly resort town.

The Rawalpindi-Murree-Kashmir highway was blocked due to a heavy landsliding at Takiya Mehram Shah. The Islamabad-Murree dual carriageway has been damaged at various places but it was still open to traffic with diversions at various places.

Meanwhile, the roof of the Chontra police lock-up collapsed during the rain on Friday. “No suspect was held in the lock-up when it caved in. All the officials in the police station remained unhurt,” SHO Malik Rafaqat told Dawn.

Meanwhile, a road also collapsed in Kotli Sattian after the heavy rain, resulting in the suspension of traffic in the area.

Published in Dawn, September 06th, 2014