Pakistan floods: video captures moment hotel is swept away by Swat River

A video has captured the moment a hotel was swept away during heavy flooding in Pakistan.

The Honeymoon Hotel in Kalam, Swat Valley was decimated by floods when the Swat river burst its banks - leaving nothing left.

In the video, which was filmed on Saturday (27 August), the river can be seen flowing aggressively near the base of the hotel before the strong current causes the building to crumble.

The valley has been battered with torrential rain over the past week, and it was on the eighth day of flooding that the hotel was washed away.

Thankfully, the hotel was empty at the time as it had already been evacuated.

An eyewitness said: “We were watching from our holiday home on the other side of the valley when the hotel was decimated.

“The hotel is one of the most popular and expensive in the region, so seeing it destroyed was a surreal moment.”

So far the, the extreme weather is estimated to have left around 1,000 people dead and many more homeless.

Where is the flooding in Pakistan?

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority reported that the death toll since the monsoon season began earlier than normal this year – in mid-June – reached 1,033 people after new fatalities were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southern Sindh provinces.

The unprecedented monsoon season has affected all four of the country’s provinces. Nearly 300,000 homes have been destroyed, numerous roads rendered impassable and electricity outages have been widespread, affecting millions of people.

Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and the country’s top climate official, told Turkish news outlet TRT World that by the time the rains recede “we could well have one fourth or one third of Pakistan under water”.

“This is something that is a global crisis and of course we will need better planning and sustainable development on the ground … We’ll need to have climate resilient crops as well as structures,” she said.