At least 18 members of a family, who were part of a tourist group, on Friday drowned in flash floods in the Swat River in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, rescue officials said.

So far, 12 bodies have been recovered after the flash flood near the GE Qurban Hotel on the Swat Bypass caused devastating losses, they said.

The provincial government launched extensive rescue operations, involving 120 rescue workers at eight different locations across Swat.