NEW DELHI (AP) – At least 34 people have been killed after struck parts of Pakistan and India causing flash floods and landslides in India-controlled Kashmir, officials said on Wednesday. More than 200,000 people in Pakistan have been evacuated, and the shrines of the founders of the Sikh religion have been submerged.
Forecasters say rain will continue throughout the region this week. The intense downpours and flash floods in the Himalayas killed nearly 100 people in August.
Rescue personnel will evacuate villagers from flooded areas of Doupsari village in Pakistan’s Kasur district on Tuesday, August 26, 2025. (AP photo/km chaudary)
Part of the mountainside of India-controlled Jammu region of Kashmir collapsed into a popular Hindu pilgrimage route following heavy rains in the Katra region late Tuesday. The followers were trekking to reach Hilltop Temple, one of the most visited shrines in northern India, officials said.
According to disaster management authorities Mohammed Irshad, most of the pilgrimage victims were recovered from under the wreckage.
People will see the damaged bridge above the swollen Tawi River in Jammu, India on Wednesday, August 27, 2025.
Rescue squads washed the area for missing people on Wednesday, and pilgrimage to the shrine was suspended, Ilshad said.
According to Lt. Gen. Inam Haider, chairman of the National Disaster Management Agency, he called for Army assistance in rescue and relief operations on Wednesday after heavy rains swelled up after the heavy rivers inflated, flooding the village and blowing over 200,000 people.
Army spokesman General Ahmed Sharif said two soldiers were killed while helping the victims of the flood. He gave no further details.
The floods also submerged the shrine of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, near the Indian border in Narowar district.
Rescuers have evacuated more than 20,000 people overnight from the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city to face flood risk. The evacuated people lived along the beds of the Rabbi River, said Irfan Ali Kasia, director of the Punjab Disaster Management Bureau.
Kasia said mass evacuations began earlier this week in six Punjab districts, starting in six Punjab districts, after the release of water from nearby India’s overflowing dams caused flash floods in the lowlands, Kasia said.
Kasia warned that flooding of the rivers of Rabi, Chenab and Satrej was at risk, and many villages were flooded in Kasur, Okala, Bahawarnagar, Bahawarpur, Biari and Siarkot districts.
The family walked towards rescue boats that arrived after evacuating from flooded areas in Dope Sari district, Pakistan’s Kasur district, on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, and the rising levels of the Satrej River released water from the overflowing dams of neighboring India. (AP photo/km chaudary)
India warned Pakistan about possible cross-border flooding through diplomatic channels, not the Indus Water Committee, a permanent mechanism under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. New Delhi has halted the commission’s work after killing 26 tourists in India-controlled Kashmir in April, but Pakistan has argued that India cannot unilaterally abolish the treaty.
Rescuers carrying sniffer dogs continue to search for more than 150 people reportedly gone missing this month after floods were killed in three villages in Pakistan’s northwest Banner district.
Floods have killed more than 800 people in Pakistan since late June.
Scientists say climate change is fueling heavier monsoon rains in South Asia, increasing the fears of repeated 2022 weather disasters that hit a third of Pakistan and killed 1,739 people.
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Ahmed reported from New Delhi from Islamabad and Sarik. Associated Press writer Babaldgar contributed from Lahore, Pakistan.
