Four drown after boat carrying flood victims capsizes in Punjab's Jalalpur

MULTAN: Four people, including a woman and three children, drowned after a rescue boat carrying flood victims capsized in Jalalpur, Multan, the police said on Saturday. 

In a statement, the city police officer (CPO) confirmed that around 30 people were on board at the time of the incident, with 25 rescued — among them six injured — while a two-month-old child remains missing. Rescue teams are continuing operations to search for the infant.

According to rescue officials, some victims were pulled out by local residents. The CPO said the deceased included a woman and three children.

The boat had been deployed to evacuate flood-affected residents but overturned due to overcrowding as more people boarded than its capacity, the CPO said. He added that a strong water current in the affected area contributed to the tragedy.

For the second time in three years, catastrophic monsoon floods have carved a path of destruction across Pakistan’s north and central regions, particularly in its Punjab province, submerging villages, drowning farmland, displacing millions and killing hundreds.

Pakistan recorded 907 deaths since late June, when the monsoon season began, as per the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) latest statistics.

The floods swept into 1,400 villages in Punjab and led to evacuation of more than a million people.