KARACHI: Heavy rainfall has inundated Pakistan’s financial capital of Karachi, leaving at least 23 dead.

Record torrential rainfall flooded major city streets and damaged homes and other buildings on Friday.

“At least 23 people, including women and children, died in different accidents like wall and roof collapses and drownings,” Reuters quoted Ghulam Nabi Memon, Karachi’s police chief, as saying.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister of Sindh province, Murad Ali Shah, ordered schools be used to accommodate displaced families, whose homes had been damaged or were unreachable.

Among the victims, nine people, including four children, were killed when a wall collapsed on them, a spokesman for Shah said. A 56-year-old disabled woman drowned at home, according to a hospital official.

Cellphone services were disrupted and much of the city was plunged in darkness overnight with the main power utility company K-Electric saying the “unprecedented situation” was hampering efforts to restore electricity.

(With inputs from Agencies)