Mingora - (AFP) Thousands of people living near flooded riverbeds in northern Pakistan received government orders Saturday to evacuate their homes after torrential monsoon rains left nearly 1,000 people dead.

Valleys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have flooded, destroying dozens of buildings, including a 150-room hotel that was washed away.

Junaid Khan, 23, owner of two fish farms in Charsadda, told AFP, "The house we spent two years of hard work building has disappeared before our eyes... We sat on the side of the road watching our dream house collapse."

The annual monsoon rains, which usually extend from June to September, are important for irrigating crops and replenishing lakes and dams across the Indian subcontinent, but they also bring with them a wave of destruction and tragedies every year.

The government revealed that the floods affected more than 33 million people and destroyed about a million homes completely or seriously.

On Saturday, the authorities ordered thousands of residents of Swat district to evacuate their homes before the rivers overflowed.

"At first, some people refused to leave, but as the water level rose, they accepted," emergency services spokesman Bilal Faizi told AFP.

Authorities say this year's floods are comparable to 2010 -- the worst on record -- when more than 2,000 people were killed and about a fifth of the country's population was trapped.

Farmer Shah Faisal, his wife and two daughters took refuge at the edge of the road and he too watched the strong torrents swallow his house.

Nearby the rivers Swat, Jundi and Kabul pass through narrow city gorges before joining the Indus River.

"We ran away from death," the farmer told AFP.

The Pakistani authorities estimate that the cause of the massive and devastating rains is climate change, stressing that the country is unfairly affected by the repercussions of environmentally irresponsible practices around the world.

Pakistan ranks eighth in the Global Climate Hazards Index, a list compiled by environmental NGO German Watch of countries considered most vulnerable to extreme weather events caused by climate change.

However, residents bear part of the responsibility for the damage caused.

Corruption and construction projects that do not take into account safety have contributed to the construction of thousands of buildings in areas threatened by torrents and floods.

On Friday, the government declared a state of emergency and harnessed the army to face "this catastrophe, which has reached a rare scale" occurrence.
According to the National Disaster Management Authority, since June the monsoon rains have damaged more than 80,000 hectares of cultivated land, destroyed 3,100 km of roads and washed away 149 bridges.

In Sukkur, more than 1,000 km south of Swat, farmland has been flooded and tens of thousands of people have taken refuge on highways and elevated roads.

The floods coincide with the worst period that Pakistan is going through, and its economy has collapsed due to a deep political crisis after the removal of former Prime Minister Imran Khan from power following a motion of no confidence.