KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Heavy rains and strong winds lashed Pakistan’s largest city overnight, killing at least 15 people and injuring several others as walls and roofs collapsed at multiple locations, emergency services and hospital officials said Thursday.
The storm that began Wednesday continued into the night in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province. Authorities advised residents to avoid unnecessary travel.
At least 15 bodies were brought to the city’s main hospital. More than two dozen people were injured and treated at hospitals after weather-related incidents, police surgeon Summaiya Tariq and emergency officials said.
The storm also uprooted roadside trees and disrupted traffic, according to rescue officials and police.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department said winds of up to 90 kph (56 mph) lasted for hours. Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab urged residents to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary movement, warning that many trees had fallen and crews were working to clear roads.
Forecasters said more rain and thunderstorms with strong winds and possible isolated hailstorms could continue to affect Karachi and other parts of Sindh province as a westerly weather system moves across the region.
Rain and storms lashed many other areas across the country, emergency services reported.
Local residents examine the rubble of a boundary wall collapsed due to heavy rains and strong winds in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
Local residents navigate through the rubble of boundary wall collapsed due to heavy rains and strong winds in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
Local residents navigate through the rubble of boundary wall collapsed due to heavy rains and strong winds in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
HELSINKI (AP) — Heavy social media use contributes to a stark decline in well-being among young people, with the effects particularly worrying in teenage girls in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, according to the World Happiness Report 2026 published Thursday.
The annual report, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, also found that Finland is the happiest land in the world for the ninth year in a row, with other Nordic countries such as Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway ranking among the top 10 countries.
It highlighted how life evaluations among under 25-year-olds in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have dropped significantly over the past decade, and suggested that long hours spent scrolling through social media is a key factor in that trend.
A new entry to the top five on the list is Costa Rica, which climbed to fourth place this year after rising through the ranks from 23rd place in 2023.
The report attributes that to well-being boosts from family bonds and other social connections.
“We think it’s because of the quality of their social lives and the stability that they currently enjoy,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an Oxford economics professor who directs the Wellbeing Research Centre and co-edits the World Happiness Report.
“Latin America more generally has strong family ties, strong social ties, a great level of social capital, as a sociologist would call it, more so than in other places,” he added.
The report said Finland and the other Northern European countries’ steady ranking on top is related to a combination of wealth, its equal distribution, having a welfare state that protects people from the risks of recessions, and a healthy life expectancy.
As in previous years, nations in or near zones of major conflict remain at the foot of the rankings. Afghanistan is ranked as the unhappiest country again, followed by Sierra Leone and Malawi in Africa.
Country rankings were based on answers given by around 100,000 people in 140 countries and territories who were asked to rate their own lives. The study was done in partnership with the analytics firm Gallup and the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
In most countries, approximately 1,000 people are contacted by telephone or face-to-face each year.
Respondents were asked to evaluate their lives on a scale from 0 to 10. Among under-25s in English-speaking and Western European countries, that score dropped by almost one point over the past decade.
The report said the negative correlation between well-being and extensive social media use is particularly concerning among teenage girls. For example, it said that 15-year-old girls who use social media for five hours or more reported a drop in life satisfaction, compared to others who use it less.
Young people who use social media for less than one hour per day report the highest levels of well-being, researchers said, higher than those who do not use social media at all. But adolescents are spending an estimated average of 2.5 hours a day on social media.
“It is clear that we should look as much as possible to put the ‘social’ back into social media,” De Neve said.
Researchers noted that in some parts of the world, such as the Middle East and South America, the links between social media use and well-being are more positive — and youth well-being has not fallen despite heavy social media use.
The report said this is due to many factors that differ between continents, but concluded that heavy social media use in some countries is an important contributing factor to the decline in youth well-being.
It said the most problematic platforms are those with algorithmic feeds, feature influencers and where the main material is visual, because they encourage social comparisons. Those who use platforms that mainly facilitate communication do better.
The 2026 rankings mark the second year in a row that none of the English-speaking countries appear in the top 10. The United States is at 23rd place, Canada is at 25th and Britain at 29th.
The report, with its focus on social media, comes at a time when more and more countries have banned or are considering bans of social media for minors.
Grieshaber reported from Berlin.
FILE - Young people use their phones to view social media in Sydney, Nov. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
FILE - A young girl uses her phone while sitting on a bench in Sydney, Nov. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
FILE - Outdoor swimming pools are seen in a harbor of Helsinki, May 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)
FILE - People spend time outside after using the sauna of the public bath in Helsinki, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)
FILE - A woman walks past the Helsinki Cathedral in Helsinki, May 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)
