Pakistan has received higher-than-normal monsoon rainfall this year, triggering floods and mudslides that have killed more than 540 people since June 26.

Aziz Ahmed, a local schoolteacher in Buner, northwestern Pakistan said the thunder accompanying recent torrential rains was so loud he thought the "end of the world had come". Water, rocks and trees were swept down the mountainside after two days of intense monsoon rains,

Pakistani authorities are defending their response to flash floods that killed more than 200 people in a single northwestern district this week.