12 people were buried alive after their homes collapsed due to storms in Pakistan

Heavy rains and strong winds have killed at least 27 people, including eight children, in northwest Pakistan, officials said Sunday.

The storms hit four districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province late Saturday.

Among the dead, according to the same source, were five brothers, between the ages of two and 11.

“At least 12 people were buried alive after the roofs and walls of their homes collapsed,” disaster management authority spokesman Timur Ali Khan told AFP. The spokesman added that more than 140 people were wounded, and more than two hundred head of livestock died.

The authorities declared a state of emergency in the four regions.

Meanwhile, a cyclone is making its way across the Arabian Sea towards the coasts of Pakistan and India, and is expected to make landfall at the end of the week.

Pakistani authorities said they would begin evacuating between 8,000 and 9,000 families from along the coast in Sindh province, including in the huge port city of Karachi with a population of about 20 million.

The Pakistani authorities decided to deploy the army, starting Monday, to provide assistance.

The disaster management agency said Sunday that the typhoon could bring strong winds, storm surge and floods to cities from Tuesday evening as it approaches the region.

It added that it “advises fishermen not to go out to sea until this ‘bad weather’ has passed by June 17.”

Cyclone expected in India

In neighboring India, the Meteorological Department said, on Sunday, that the storm will likely cross the regions of Saurashtra and Kutch in the state of Gujarat in the west of the country, in conjunction with its passage on the neighboring Pakistani coasts on Thursday noon.

India’s Meteorological Department warned that the storm would likely make landfall “as a very severe hurricane, with winds of between 125 and 135 kilometers per hour, and the speed may reach 150 kilometers per hour.”

Scientists say climate change is making monsoons heavier and more difficult to predict.

Pakistan was seen last yearUnprecedented monsoon rains In the summer it flooded more than a third of the country with water, damaging two million homes and killing more than 1,700 people.

And she performed devastating floods, Coupled with the global energy crisis, increased pressure on the Pakistani economy, prompting the country to Very difficult financial situation.

This comes as the Pakistani economy suffers from a balance of payments crisis and is trying to service the massive external debt, after months of political chaos drove away any potential foreign investment.