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PESHAWAR, Pakistan: The death toll from heavy monsoon rains that have triggered flash floods across northern Pakistan has risen to at least 225 people in the last 48 hours, the disaster authority said Saturday.

The majority of the deaths, 211, were recorded in mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

Five others, including two pilots, were killed when a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government helicopter crashed due to bad weather during a mission to deliver relief goods, the chief minister of the province, Ali Amin Gandapur, said in a statement.

The provincial government has declared the severely affected mountainous districts of Buner, Bajaur, Mansehra and Battagram as disaster-hit areas.

In Bajaur, a tribal district abutting Afghanistan, a crowd amassed around an excavator trawling a mud-soaked hill, AFP photos showed.

Funeral prayers began in a paddock nearby, with people grieving in front of several bodies covered by blankets.

The meteorological department has issued a heavy rain alert for the northwest, urging people to avoid “unnecessary exposure to vulnerable areas.”

In the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, a region divided with Pakistan, rescuers pulled bodies from mud and rubble on Friday after a flood crashed through a Himalayan village, killing at least 60 people and washing away dozens more.

The monsoon season brings South Asia about three-quarters of its annual rainfall, vital for agriculture and food security, but it also brings destruction.

Landslides and flash floods are common during the season, which usually begins in June and eases by the end of September.

Syed Muhammad Tayyab Shah, a representative of the national disaster agency, told AFP that this year’s monsoon season began earlier than usual and is expected to end later.

“The next 15 days, particularly from August 16 till the 30th of August, the intensity of the monsoon will further exacerbate,” he added.

The provincial government has declared Saturday as a day of mourning, chief minister Gandapur said.

“The national flag will fly at half-mast across the province, and the martyrs will be laid to rest with full state honors,” the statement from his office said.

Scientists say that climate change has made weather events around the world more extreme and more frequent.

Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, and its population is contending with extreme weather events with increasing frequency.

The torrential rains that have pounded Pakistan since the start of the summer monsoon, described as “unusual” by authorities, have killed more than 320 people, nearly half of them children.

In July, Punjab, home to nearly half of Pakistan’s 255 million people, recorded 73 percent more rainfall than the previous year and more deaths than in the entire previous monsoon.

In 2022, monsoon floods submerged a third of the country and killed 1,700 people.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Hurricane Erin strengthened into a Category 2 storm on Friday as it approached the northeast Caribbean, prompting forecasters to warn of possible flooding and landslides.

The storm is expected to remain over open waters, although tropical storm watches were issued for Anguilla, Barbuda, St. Martin, St. Barts, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten.

Heavy rains were forecast to start late Friday in Antigua and Barbuda, the US and British Virgin Islands and southern and eastern Puerto Rico. Up to 10 centimeters are expected, with isolated totals of up to 15 centimeters, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The hurricane center also warned of dangerous swells but said the threat of direct impacts in the Bahamas and along the east coast of the United States “appears to be gradually decreasing.”

The storm was located 405 kilometers northeast of Anguilla as of the hurricane center’s 11 p.m. EDT advisory. It had maximum sustained wind speeds of 160kph and was moving west north-west at 27kph.

Hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said Erin is forecast to eventually take a sharp turn northeast that would put it on a path between the US and Bermuda.

“All of our best consensus aids show Erin turning safely east of the United States next week, but it’ll be a much closer call for Bermuda, which could land on the stronger eastern side of Erin,” he said.

Erin is the Atlantic season’s first hurricane. It is forecast to become a major Category 3 storm late this weekend and pass some 320 kilometers north of Puerto Rico.

The US government has deployed more than 200 employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to Puerto Rico as a precaution as forecasters issued a flood watch for the entire US territory from late Friday into Monday.

Puerto Rico Housing Secretary Ciary Perez Pena said 367 shelters have been inspected and could be opened if needed.

The US Coast Guard said Friday that it closed six seaports in Puerto Rico and two in the US Virgin Islands to all incoming vessels unless they had received prior authorization.

Meanwhile, officials in the Bahamas said they prepared some public shelters as a precaution as they urged people to track the hurricane.

“These storms are very volatile and can make sudden shifts in movement,” said Aarone Sargent, managing director for the Bahamas’ disaster risk management authority.

Dangerous surf and rip currents are expected to affect the US East Coast next week, with waves reaching up to five meters along parts of the North Carolina coast that could cause beach erosion, according to AccuWeather.

“Erin is forecast to explode into a powerful Category 4 hurricane as it moves across very warm waters in the open Atlantic. Water temperatures at the surface and hundreds of feet deep are several degrees higher than the historical average,” said Alex DaSilva, AccuWeather’s lead hurricane expert.

Erin is the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

This year’s season is once again expected to be unusually busy. The forecast calls for six to 10 hurricanes, with three to five reaching major status with winds of more than 177kph.