Staff Reporter
A five-year-old girl drowned in a stormwater drain in Rawalpindi’s Habib Colony on Sunday after the city saw intermittent light and heavy rain starting from the morning, according to a rescue official.
The child died after she fell into the water and was swept away for a kilometre into the drain before being pulled out by locals, Rescue 1122 spokesperson Rafaqat Chaudhry said.
Rescue officials tried to administer CPR to revive her, he said, adding that angry area residents had refused to hand over her body and tried to attack the rescue personnel.
Umar Farooq, a spokesperson for the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), said there was heavy rain in many areas of Rawalpindi and many low-lying areas were inundated though they had been cleared out.
He said a stormwater drain in Peshawar Road’s lane number four had burst and rainwater had seeped into homes, causing difficulties for people.
Wasa staff had been deployed to different areas of Rawalpindi and water extraction was being expedited in low-lying areas, Farooq said.
He added that the low-lying areas had been cleared of water and there was no inundation in the city now.
According to the Wasa spokesperson, 28 millimetres of rain had been recorded in Rawalpindi and the water level had started rising in Leh Nullah, Kataria and Gawalmandi.
Meanwhile, locals said the Chak Jalal Din Christian Colony had been flooded, with residents forced to climb their roofs as the administration was absent.
Wasa and rescue officials said water had also inundated many roads, leaving vehicles stranded and disrupting traffic, though Farooq said the rainwater had been cleared out and traffic flow restored.
A spokesperson for the National Disaster Management Authority said an alert had been issued to all relevant agencies to respond to any emergency situation.
