Disasters & Accidents

Afghan flash flood toll increases to 56

Kabul, May 6 (EFE).- The death toll due to flash floods in Afghanistan reached 56 Thursday with 30 people still missing, officials said.

Around 1,000 houses got damaged in days of heavy rains and flash floods across the war-ravaged country.

Tamim Azimi, a disaster management ministry spokesperson, told EFE that 56 people were confirmed dead.

“Twenty-five more are injured and another 30 missing in rains and flash floods,” Azimi said.

Women and children are among the victims of the floods.

Rescue operations continue in the affected provinces.

Western Herat province is the worst affected, where 22 have died in torrential rains for the past three days across the country.

The flooding has displaced hundreds of families, Azimi said.

Some 4,000 acres of farming land got destroyed, and more than 3,000 livestock of the farmers perished.

The government sent emergency teams to assess the severity of the damage and provide assistance to those affected.

The flash floods came days after the Afghan Meteorological Department on May 2 issued warnings of heavy rains and flash floods with rainfall of between 10-30 mm in 15 of the 34 provinces.

Afghanistan often suffers from natural disasters causing the loss of numerous lives, such as the landslides in May 2014 in the northeastern part of the country that left some 2,000 people dead.

In August last year, nearly 200 people were killed, and some 1,000 houses got destroyed in floods caused by heavy rains in around a dozen Afghan provinces. EFE

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