Flash floods claim at least 70 lives in Afghanistan

Kabul, Aug 26 (efe-epa).- At least 70 people have been killed and 90 injured in torrential rain-triggered flash floods in Afghanistan’s northern Parwan province, officials said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of houses have also been damaged in the disaster that hit the province less than 100 km (62 miles) north of the national capital Kabul.

“We have received 70 dead bodies. Some 90 people injured are in a hospital,” Safiullah Warasta, provincial public health director, told EFE. “Women and children are among the dead and injured persons.”

The floodwater began inundating residential areas around 3 am local time (22.30 GMT on Tuesday), jolting people out of their sleep in the provincial capital of Charikar, provincial president’s spokesperson Rahmatullah Haidari told EFE.

The death toll is likely to rise as many people are believed to be missing as rescuers are clearing the debris of fallen houses. Some 500 resident

“Our rescue and response teams are working hard and continue to recover bodies, clearing blocked roads, searching for missing persons and providing emergency assistance to those affected,” Haidari said.

The spokesperson said the property damage is “very high,” with some 500 houses that have been partially damaged or destroyed.

The Afghan Department of Disaster Management posted images of the disaster on its social media, showing how the floodwaters have wreaked havoc with fallen structures and damaged vehicles and streets strewn with mud.

“We are mobilizing all our available resources to rescue the trapped people, extract the corpses, open the roads, provide first aid (…) and deliver edible and inedible items to those affected,” said disaster management agency spokesperson Ahmad Tamim Azimi.

According to Azimi, heavy rains also left two people dead and five injured in central Maidan Wardak province and another two dead and three injured in eastern Nangarhar.

Afghanistan frequently suffers from natural disasters that cause numerous human losses, such as the landslides that killed 2,000 people in May 2014 in the northeast of the country.

Afghanistan is a nation with many of the lowest development indicators in the world and has been at war for decades. EFE-EPA

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