At least 143 killed in unusually heavy April rains

At least 143 people were killed in Pakistan in April due to lightning and storm-related incidents, officials said on Tuesday.
Pakistan Meteorological Department spokesman Zaheer Ahmad Babar said April rainfall in Pakistan was “164 percent above normal, which is extraordinary.”
“We already watch these extreme weather conditions as direct consequence of climate change,” he told AFP.
Pakistan is also more vulnerable to unpredictable weather and destructive monsoon rains that usually come in July.
In April, the highest death toll was in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 83 were killed, including 38 children, and more than 3,500 homes were destroyed.
“The death was caused by a roof collapse and a landslide,” Anwar Shahzad, spokesman for the provincial disaster management agency, told AFP on Tuesday.
In several districts of northern Punjab, the most populous province of Mostur, crops of wheat, a staple food, were damaged by the storm.
Environmentalist Maryam Shabbir Abbasi told AFP that the general weather conditions “change in about a month and a half and we have to shift the calendar to agriculture to avoid damage caused by unprecedented rainfall”.
Earlier this month, several people, including wheat harvest farmers, were killed by lightning in Punjab, and a total of 21 people died in various rain-related incidents, officials said.
In April, 21 more people were reported dead in Balochistan province, including seven due to lightning strikes that caused disruption and closed schools in several districts.
Fourteen people were killed in the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir, while at least four people were killed in flood-related road accidents in southern Sindh province.
According to World Bank estimates, a third of Pakistan will be inundated by unprecedented monsoon rains in the summer of 2022.
Some parts of the country have experienced heavy rains this month, with the largest city, Karachi, experiencing its hottest day on Sunday, with temperatures reaching 37 degrees Celsius (99 Fahrenheit).