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People in Pakistan are burying their dead after days of extreme rain caused the deaths of over 300 people. And as NPR's Diaa Hadid reports, environmentalists say this wasn't just a natural disaster.
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Rain has been pounding northern Pakistan for weeks now, but it took an extreme turn on Friday.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: Pakistani news channel ARY raced to the worst hit area, called Buner. It's in the Alpine Mountains and a river snakes through its green farmland. The rain dislodged boulders and trees and sent them gushing down with the water.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Non-English language spoken).
ABDUL WAHID: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: One resident that NPR spoke to says he fled his village as the water came.
WAHID: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: Resident Abdul Wahid (ph) says he turned around and saw about half his village had disappeared. He says it looked like doomsday. He's been helping with recovery efforts and says at least 145 people have been killed. Twenty are still missing in his village. Residents in Pakistan's northwest are accustomed to river flooding, which is easier to predict. But extreme rain is unprecedented in this part of the country, so folks were caught by surprise when it cascaded down the mountains. Making things worse, 2024 was the hottest year on record. All that heat has been melting glaciers in Pakistan's Himalayas. And the rivers were swollen with ice melt, so there was nowhere for this water to go.
Pakistan's disaster management authority says it did issue emergency alerts every six to 12 hours. But in the worst hit areas, residents say nobody warned them. Fatima Yasin (ph) is a Pakistan-based climate and disaster risk reduction expert. She says a shortage of funds since COVID means there's less money for disaster preparedness, and it's likely that money for that last-mile work, like SMS alerts, was cut.
FATIMA YASIN: There is actually no transparency regarding any money for climate resilience.
HADID: For now, the government says it's acting to contain this crisis. And Pakistanis are watching and waiting because this extreme rain is expected to continue for a few more days. And authorities have already issued warnings to communities downstream that their areas might, too, be flooded.
Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Mumbai.
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