Flash floods in western Afghanistan have killed at least 50 people, provincial police said Saturday, a week after similar floods killed more than 300 people in the north.
“Fifty residents of Ghor (western) province died in Friday’s floods and several more are missing,” said police spokesman Abdul Rahman Badri.
Some 2,000 homes were destroyed and thousands more were damaged. “These terrible floods also killed thousands of livestock, destroyed hundreds of hectares of agricultural land, hundreds of bridges and thousands of trees,” he added. Zahir Zahid, a resident of Firozkoh district, told AFP that he and his family ran to higher ground when they were alerted by aerial gunfire and mosque loudspeakers of the imminent arrival.
“Five minutes later, a huge, horrible flash flood swept through and took everything away. I saw how it destroyed my house with my own eyes,” he said, contacted by phone. “Women and children, everyone was crying. In our neighborhood, about a hundred houses were razed, nothing was left.” Sherzai was shocked by the force of the flood. nothing else.”
Obaidullah Muradian, head of the province’s disaster management department, calls it an “emergency situation.” The floods affected several districts of the province, including the capital, Chaghcharan, where the streets “are full of mud,” he told AFP. ”The situation is really worrying” and the victims need shelter, food and water.
Late last week, other provinces, including Baghlan in the north, had already suffered flash floods and more bad weather is expected, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns. This new episode occurs while survivors of these floods continue to search for missing relatives. Efforts complicated by the destruction of bridges and roads.
At least 300 people have died from flooding in the north, according to the World Food Program (WFP) and Taliban officials. The United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said on Saturday that after emergency interventions financial support will be needed to help survivors. “I urge donors to provide more funds for humanitarian aid, but also for essential
The rains occurred after an abnormally dry winter and several years of drought in this country, one of the most exposed to climate change, according to experts. Afghanistan, which is “exceptionally prone to flooding,” is experiencing abnormally high rainfall this spring, water management expert Mohammad Assem Mayar said in a report by the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
”With these erratic weather situations, it has been one disaster after another, plunging villagers into extreme poverty,” said Timothy Anderson, head of Afghanistan at the WFP, on Tuesday. The country, ravaged by four decades of war, It is one of the poorest in the world. Around 80% of its 40 million inhabitants depend on agriculture for their survival.
