Flash floods and landslides triggered by two days of intense monsoon downpours have killed at least 344 people across Pakistan’s mountainous north, the National Disaster Management Authority said on Sunday. The worst devastation is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where a rare cloudburst dumped more than 150 millimetres of rain on Buner district in an hour, wiping out whole villages. Provincial officials report more than 150 people still missing and warn the toll could rise as debris is cleared. Rescue operations involving roughly 2,000 personnel are hampered by washed-out roads, severed power lines and continuing rain. A helicopter deployed to ferry relief supplies crashed amid poor weather, killing all five crew members. Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has declared the hardest-hit districts disaster zones, pledged compensation of two million rupees (about US$7,200) to the families of the dead and promised to relocate survivors living in high-risk areas. Across the border in Indian-controlled Kashmir, separate cloudbursts and landslides have left at least 60 people dead in Kishtwar and Kathua districts, where search teams from the army and disaster-response forces are combing remote villages for dozens of missing residents. Meteorologists expect heavy rain to persist across the western Himalayan foothills until early September. Disaster-management officials say a westward shift in monsoon patterns, which they link to warming temperatures, is exposing densely populated valleys to more frequent cloudbursts and flash floods. Pakistan’s 2025 deluge follows record-breaking floods in 2022 that submerged a third of the country and underscores its vulnerability to climate-driven weather extremes.