Kabul:

At least 50 people are dead following a fresh bout of heavy rain and flooding in central Afghanistan, an official said on Saturday.

Mawlawi Abdul Hai Zaeem, the head of the information department for the central Ghor province, told Reuters that there was no information about how many people were injured in the rain spell that began on Friday, which had also cut off many key roads to the area.

Zaeem added that 2,000 houses were completely destroyed, 4,000 partially damaged, and more than 2,000 shops were under water in the province’s capital, Feroz-Koh.

Last week, flash floods caused by heavy rains devastated villages in northern Afghanistan, killing 315 people and injuring more than 1,600, authorities said on Sunday.

On Wednesday, a helicopter used by the Afghan air force crashed due to “technical issues” during attempts to recover the bodies of people who had fallen into a river in Ghor province, killing one and injuring 12 people, the country’s defence ministry said.

Afghanistan is prone to natural disasters and the United Nations considers it one of countries most vulnerable to climate change.

It has battled a shortfall in aid after the Taliban took over as foreign forces withdrew from the country in 2021, since development aid that formed the backbone of government finances was slashed.

The shortfall has worsened in subsequent years as foreign governments grapple with competing global crises and growing condemnation of the Taliban’s curbs on Afghan women.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kabul:

Flash floods that have ripped through northern Afghanistan left more than 200 people dead in a single province, the United Nations said on Saturday.

More than 200 people were killed and thousands of houses were destroyed or damaged in Baghlan province when heavy rains on Friday sparked massive flooding, the UN’s International Organization for Migration told AFP.

In Baghlani Jadid district alone, up to 1,500 homes were damaged or destroyed and “more than 100 people died”, an IOM emergency response lead said, citing figures from the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority.

Taliban government officials said 62 people had died as of Friday night. 

Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said “hundreds of our fellow citizens have succumbed to these calamitous floods” in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday, without differentiating the numbers of dead and injured, though he told AFP dozens had been killed.

Multiple provinces across Afghanistan saw flash flooding, with officials in northern Takhar province reporting 20 dead on Saturday.

Rains on Friday also caused heavy damage in northeastern Badakhshan province, central Ghor province and western Herat, officials said.

Emergency personnel have been deployed to the affected areas and were rushing to rescue injured and stranded people, the defence ministry said. 

Afghanistan — which had a relatively dry winter, making it more difficult for the soil to absorb rainfall — is highly vulnerable to climate change.

The nation, ravaged by four decades of war, is one of the poorest in the world and, according to scientists, one of the worst prepared to face the consequences of global warming.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)