PESHAWAR: One person was killed and eight others injured during a stampede for free flour in Charsadda on Thursday.
The price of basic food items has rocketed in recent months, with inflation at a nearly 50-year-high as the country grapples with a balance of payments crisis that has seen it forced back into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"Nine people were trampled and were taken to hospital where one person died," said Muhammad Arif, police chief for Charsadda in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the incident happened.
Arif said hundreds of people gathered at the local market for the handouts, one of the hundreds of distribution points set up by the government during Ramadan.
Millions of low-income families across the country are registered under the scheme.
In a nearby district, a man died and four others were injured when a wall they were sitting on collapsed as crowds amassed for free flour.
Authorities told AFP it was not clear why the wall collapsed.
The country's finances have been wrecked by years of mismanagement and political instability — a situation exacerbated by a global energy crisis and devastating floods that left a third of the country under water last year.
The South Asian nation is deeply in debt and needs to introduce tough tax and utility price increases to unlock another tranche of a $6.5 billion IMF bail-out and avoid defaulting.
None of the country's coastal areas are under threat at present
The floods wreaked havoc across the nation, impacting an estimated 33 million individuals
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