7 dead as torrential rains continue

At least seven people have been killed as torrential rains continue to batter Pakistan.

According to rescue officials, one woman along her one-year-old boy died as rainwater flooded their house’s basement in Rawalpindi. Another young boy drowned while swimming, the Express Tribune reported on Friday.

Separately, a couple in Lahore was killed while three other people sustained injuries in a house collapse.

Water level in Nullah Lai, a rain water fed natural stream that flows through Rawalpindi, rose after continuous rain on Thursday night. It receded to low level later, the report said.

Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed visited Nullah Lai and directed the district administration and rescue agencies to remain alert.

Thousands of tourists were stranded in Naran, a town in Mansehra district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, following a heavy landslide due to rains.

The landslide blocked the Jalkhand-Naran road in Mansehra on Thursday. A couple was killed after their car was buried under the debris of the landslide, reports said.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai said that the government will use helicopters to provide the tourists with food and shift the ill to hospitals.