Disasters & Accidents

12 dead in flash floods in western Afghanistan

Kabul, May 4 (EFE).- Flash floods caused by heavy rains have caused the death of 12 people, including four children, in the western Afghan province of Herat, officials said Tuesday.

Heavy rains overnight caused severe flooding in several districts of Herat province, causing damages to livestock and hundreds of acres of farmland in the villages.

The province’s Adraskan district was the most severely affected where “12 villagers including four children and a woman were killed,” Herat Governor’s spokesperson Jailani Farhad told EFE.

He added that hundreds of domesticated animals of the villagers also perished in the floods while hundreds of acres of agricultural land and orchards of the poor farmers were also destroyed, Jailani said.

Provincial administration has created an emergency response committee in Herat to deal for disaster response efforts in the affected districts.

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

According to the warning, heavy rains are expected to continue until tomorrow and in 23 of the 34 provinces in the country.

Afghanistan often suffers from natural disasters causing the loss of numerous lives, such as the landslides in May 2014 in the north-eastern 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 destroyed in floods caused by heavy rains in around dozen Afghan provinces. EFE

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