Pakistan's second-largest city, Lahore, experienced an unprecedented deluge on Thursday, with record-breaking rainfall inundating homes and medical facilities.
Certain locales within the city, situated in close proximity to the Indian border, recorded a staggering 353 millimeters (14 inches) of precipitation within a span of just a few hours, as reported by the Water and Sanitation Agency.
This surpassed the previous record of 332 millimeters over a duration of three hours, set in the city in July 1980, according to municipal records.
The deputy director of the Pakistan Meteorological Department's (PMD) was quoted by AFP news agency as describing the rainfall as "unprecedented" in the area, highlighting the severity of the event.
As a result of the torrential downpour, schools and offices across Lahore have been forced to remain closed.
Tragically, the city has also witnessed a loss of life, with at least one individual succumbing to electrocution. In response to the crisis, the city's commissioner has issued a state of emergency declaration, mandating the closure of all educational institutions and workplaces for the day.
Furthermore, the heavy rainfall has led to widespread flooding, with rainwater infiltrating several wards of the Jinnah and Services hospitals in Lahore, complicating the treatment of patients.
The government has allocated all available resources to ensure that cleanup efforts are in full swing at both the hospitals and throughout the city.
In a different region, the mountainous northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been similarly affected by the heavy rains over the past three days. The provincial disaster management authority has reported that at least 24 individuals have lost their lives due to the disaster.
This is not an isolated incident, as the country has been grappling with catastrophic rainfall in recent years, with experts attributing these extreme weather events to climate change or long-term shifts in weather patterns.
In a neighboring country, India, the situation has been equally dire, with over 180 fatalities reported following landslides triggered by heavy rains in a hilly region of the southern state of Kerala.
