Landslides, rain kill 67*

 From correspondents in Muzaffarabad

March 22, 2007 05:48am
Article from: Agence France-Presse

RELENTLESS rain triggered landslides and roof collapses across northern
Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, leaving at least 67 people dead.

At least 37 survivors of the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistani
Kashmir were killed when two mudslides swept away their mountainside
homes, police spokesman Javed Ahmed said in the regional capital
Muzaffarabad.

Twenty-seven people, mostly women, died and 16 were injured when a huge
landslide hit Doba Syedan village in Kashmir's Jhelum Valley area
yesterday, police spokesman Javed Ahmed said.

Another 10 were killed in a separate landslip at Jabar Daray village in
the mountainous Bagh district the same day, Ahmed said.

"It has been raining here for two days and the landslides happened
almost simultaneously. These people were in houses built on terraces on
the hillsides and huge landslides buried them," Mr Ahmed said.

"Police and army teams are in the area trying to remove the debris and
recover the bodies. So far two bodies have been recovered in the Jhelum
Valley. Efforts (are) being made to recover the others."

Mr Ahmed said: "It's very unfortunate. These are the people who were
worst hit in the earthquake."

The 7.6-magnitude quake in October 2005 claimed more than 73,000 lives
and left 3.3 million homeless in Pakistani Kashmir and northwestern
Pakistan. More than 1000 also died in Indian Kashmir.

Authorities shifted around 55 families to safer places and gave them
tents and rations after landslides damaged dozens of homes in the
Tariqabad area adjoining Muzaffarabad, district chief Syed Zahoor Gilani
said.

Landslides and avalanches were also reported in North West Frontier
Province bordering Afghanistan and press reports said the nationwide
toll excluding Kashmir stood at more than 30.

Five members of a family were buried alive when an avalanche hit their
home in mountainous Swat district yesterday, the state-run Associated
Press of Pakistan said. Five more died when their roof caved in in the
same district.

Four family members were reported killed in a landslide in the nearby
town of Mingora and another seven died when their house collapsed in
Malakand district. A house collapse also left three children and women
dead in Mardan.

Torrential rains and heavy snow also paralysed life in northern Pakistan
and traffic was blocked on the main Karakoram Highway linking Pakistan
with China.

The meteorological department has forecast more rains in Kashmir and
northwest Pakistan over the next 36 hours.