Heavy rains kill 89 in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Sept 5 (agencies): At least 89 people have been killed across Pakistan after heavy rains brought flash floods and caused homes to collapse in the Punjab and Kashmir regions, government officials said Friday.
Most deaths occurred in the city of Lahore, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's powerbase, further damaging the government's standing after weeks of protests aimed at forcing the premier to step down.
As the political crisis dragged through its third week, people's attention turned to the devastation brought by the floods, with television channels showing live images of villages and towns inundated by muddy water.
At least 43 people have been killed in Punjab province and 30 in the Himalayan region of Kashmir in recent days, officials said.
Authorities have issued flood warnings across the country.
"We are bracing for more deaths as more rains are expected," said Khawaja Omer Rashid, a spokesman at Kashmir's disaster management authority.
In the Indian part of the disputed Kashmir region, at least 65 people were killed after heavy rain triggered flash floods, officials there said on Thursday.
Pakistan's civilian governments have long been perceived as riddled by corruption and largely ineffective, leaving the powerful military to step in during disasters.
This week, the army moved in across Punjab to carry out flood relief work while poorly resourced civilian authorities struggled to help.
Television pictures showed a military helicopter evacuating people trapped by floods in the garrison city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad. No floods were reported in the capital which has also seen continuous torrential rainfall since Thursday.
Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) warned there was a high risk of flooding in three towns along the Chenab river in Punjab and asked people to leave low-lying and vulnerable areas.
Troops have been mobilised for flood relief duties in eastern Punjab and "will remain on standby in Lahore", the provincial capital.
Dramatic images from Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, on Thursday showed some major streets flooded.
Naseer warned that the death toll was likely to rise as reports were coming in of floodwaters sweeping through villages in rural areas.
At least 31 people were killed In Pakistani-administered Kashmir with nine injured, Akram Sohail, chairman disaster management agency in Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir told AFP.
"Most of them died due to landslides, roof collapse and drowning," Sohail said.
Also in mountainous Kashmir, three soldiers died on Thursday in a mudslide near the de facto border with India, which like Pakistan claims the territory as its own.
There were desperate scenes in Rawalpindi, Islamabad's twin city, where rescuers struggled to free a man buried up to his face in mud that had engulfed his family's house.