More than 300 people killed due to heavy rain, floods in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: The death toll from heavy rains and flooding in Pakistan has crossed 300, local officials said on Saturday.

The majority of the deaths were recorded in mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

Five others, including two pilots, were killed when a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government helicopter crashed due to bad weather during a mission to deliver relief goods, the chief minister of the province, Ali Amin Gandapur, said in a statement.

The provincial government has declared the severely affected mountainous districts of Buner, Bajaur, Mansehra and Battagram as disaster-hit areas.

In Bajaur, a tribal district abutting Afghanistan, a crowd amassed around an excavator trawling a mud-soaked hill, AFP photos showed.