Pakistan flood death toll climbs to 58
KARACHI, Pakistan -- Three days of heavy monsoon rains triggering flash floods killed at least 58 people across Pakistan, as troops with boats rushed Sunday to evacuate people in the country's southern Sindh and southwestern Baluchistan provinces.
Every year, many cities in Pakistan struggle to cope with the annual monsoon deluge, drawing criticism about poor planning. The monsoon season runs from July through September, with swelling rivers damaging crops and infrastructure.
Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority said 19 people were killed in rain-related incidents in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 12 in southern Sindh province, eight in Punjab province and 10 in the country's northern Gligit Baltistan region in the past three days.
Rains also damaged about 100 homes and caused a breach in a flooded main canal, inundating villages in Sindh province. The military said troops used boats to rescue stranded people. It said a medical camp was established and food was being provided.
Heavy rains also lashed many districts in the southwestern Baluchistan province, killing eight people, damaging homes and inundating many villages in the district of Jhal Magsi, said Saleem Zakir, spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority. He said rescuers with the army's help were still trying to evacuate people.
He said floods damaged a bridge and a gas pipeline and destroyed coastal roads on the Arabian Sea, severing links to the port of Gwadar, part of China's multibillion-dollar one-road project linking south and Central Asia to China.
U.K. aims to stop migrants in channel
LONDON -- The British government has appointed a former Royal Marine commando to try to stop people from crossing the English Channel from France in small boats.
The government said Sunday that Dan O'Mahoney, who currently heads the U.K.'s Joint Maritime Security Center, has been named "clandestine Channel threat commander."
Home Secretary Priti Patel said O'Mahoney would work with French authorities on stronger enforcement measures, including intercepting boats at sea, "to make this route unviable."
Britain's Conservative government has talked tough amid a surge in the number of migrants crossing the channel during recent warm summer weather. The British and French immigration ministers are due to hold talks on the issue this week.
Human-rights groups have criticized the British government's harsh rhetoric and accused officials of trying to blame France for the rise in the number of crossings.
Bridget Chapman of the Kent Refugee Action Network accused the government of "saber-rattling," and called for asylum-seekers to be given legal ways to come to Britain. "That would close this route overnight, would save lives, and we would know exactly who was arriving and when," she said.
130 people killed in Yemen flooding
SANAA, Yemen -- Yemen's Houthi rebels said Sunday that floods have swept through rebel-held parts of the country since mid-July amid heavy seasonal rains, leaving more than 130 people dead and damaging more than 260 homes.
The Houthi-run Health Ministry said at least 124 others were injured by the flooding in parts of northern Yemen controlled by the rebels, including the capital, Sanaa, and its historic Old City.
More than 160,000 people were forced to leave their homes in the provinces of Hajjah and Hodeida, security officials said.
At least 33,000 displaced people who were sheltering in camps in southern Yemen lost their tents and belongings in the floods, the International Committee of the Red Cross said last month.
The devastating floods in the Arab world's poorest country have exacerbated a cholera outbreak, with 127,900 suspected cases across eight provinces since January, the World Health Organization said in July.
The Red Cross also warned that the floods have accelerated the spread of dengue fever and malaria, as mosquitoes carrying the diseases breed in puddles.
94 migrants found crammed in truck
SKOPJE, North Macedonia -- Police in North Macedonia say they have found 94 migrants packed into a truck in the country's southeast.
A police patrol stopped the truck with Macedonian national license plates late Saturday near the town of Radovish, 68 miles southeast of the capital, Skopje. The truck driver fled from the scene, police said Sunday.
Police found 94 migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan packed into the truck's cargo area.
The migrants were detained and will be transferred to a migrant shelter in the southern border town of Gevgelija, pending deportation to Greece, where they came from.
The Greek border with North Macedonia was closed earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. But trafficking networks remain active, ferrying migrants who make their way from Turkey into Greece and then attempt to head north toward more prosperous countries in the European Union.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
