LAQAYI, Afghanistan: More than 300 people have died in flash floods that have hit several Afghan provinces, the United Nations World Food Programme said on Saturday, as authorities declared a state of emergency and rushed to rescue the injured.
Many people remain missing after heavy rains on Friday sent roaring rivers of water and mud rushing through villages and farmland in several provinces, causing what one aid group described as a “major humanitarian emergency”.
Survivors walked through muddy, debris-strewn streets and damaged buildings on Saturday as authorities and non-governmental groups deployed rescuers and aid, warning that some areas had been cut off by flooding.
According to the WFP report, the northern province of Baghlan was one of the worst affected provinces and in this province alone more than 300 people were killed and thousands of houses were destroyed or damaged.
According to current information, there are 311 casualties, 2,011 houses destroyed and 2,800 houses damaged in Baghlan province,” according to the UN agency’s communications officer in Afghanistan, Rana Deraz.
There were discrepancies between the death tolls provided by the government and aid agencies.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration said 218 people had died in Baghlan.
Abdul Mateen Qani, a spokesman for the interior ministry, told media that 131 people had been killed in Baghlan, but that the government’s death toll could rise.
“A lot of people are still missing,” he said.
Another 20 deaths were reported in the northern province of Takhar and two in neighbouring Badakhshan, he added.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X: “Hundreds of our fellow citizens have succumbed to these calamitous floods”.
He added that the flood has caused extensive devastation to residential properties, resulting in significant financial losses.
Torrential rains caused heavy damage in Baghlan, Takhar and Badakhshan, as well as in the western provinces of Ghor and Herat, in a poverty-stricken country heavily dependent on agriculture.
Rescuers rushed to rescue the wounded and stranded Afghans.
The air force said it began evacuation operations when skies cleared on Saturday, adding that more than 100 injured people had been taken to hospital.
UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed his solidarity with the people of Afghanistan and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding that the UN was working with local authorities to provide assistance.
The International Rescue Committee was also preparing a swift response, adding that the floods should act as a “wake-up call” reminding world leaders and donors not to forget a country ravaged by decades of conflict and plagued by natural disasters.
Farmland was flooded in a country where 80 percent of its more than 40 million people depend on agriculture for their survival.
Afghanistan is highly vulnerable to climate change.
