Hopes for survivors wane as landslides, flooding bury Pakistan villages
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Most of the deaths were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where monsoon rains that are only expected to intensify in the days ahead drove flooding and landslides that collapsed houses.
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In hardest-hit Bunar district, at least 208 people were killed and '10 to 12 entire villages' partially buried, a provincial rescue spokesman told AFP.
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'The operation to rescue people trapped under debris is ongoing,' said Bilal Ahmed Faizi of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's rescue agency.
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'There is still concern that dozens of people may be trapped under the rubble… the chances of those buried under the debris surviving are very slim'.
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He said that around 2,000 rescue workers were engaged in recovering bodies from the debris and carrying out relief operations across nine districts, where rain was still hampering efforts.
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AFP journalists in Buner saw half-buried vehicles and belongings lying strewn in the sludge, with mud covering houses and shops.
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Flooded roads hampered the movement of rescue vehicles, as a few villagers worked to cut fallen trees to clear the way after the water receded.
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'Our belongings are scattered, ruined and are in bad shape,' local shopkeeper Noor Muhammad told AFP as he used a shovel to remove mud.
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'The shops have been destroyed along with everything else. Even the little money people had has been washed away,' he added.
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The provincial government has declared the severely affected mountainous districts of Buner, Bajaur, Swat, Shangla, Mansehra and Battagram as disaster-hit areas.
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'This disaster has spread everywhere and surrounded us from all sides. We were trapped in our homes and could not get out, another Buner resident, Syed Wahab Bacha, told AFP.
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'Our entire poor community has been affected. The shops in the lower bazaar have been destroyed. This road was our only path, and it too has been washed away,' he added.
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One typically lasts from June to September, with rains moving southwest to northeast. The other, from roughly October to December, moves in the opposite direction. But with more planet-warming gases in the air, the rain now only loosely follows this pattern. This is because the warmer air can hold more moisture from the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, and that rain then tends to get dumped all at once. It means the monsoon is punctuated with intense flooding and dry spells, rather than sustained rain throughout. The combination of moisture, mountains and monsoons force these moisture-laden winds upward, triggering sudden condensation and cloudbursts. They are hard to predict, but precaution is possible It's difficult to predict cloudbursts because of their size, duration, suddenness and complex atmospheric mechanisms. 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