More than 50 people have died and dozens are missing in the province of Baghlan, in northern Afghanistan, after flash floods, sources from the interim Taliban government reported this Saturday.
“According to the first information, More than 50 people died in the floods.although the number may increase as search operations continue,” the spokesperson for the provincial Department of Information and Culture, Assadullah Mustafa Hashimi, told Efe.
The same source added that the authorities sent civil and military teams to help in the rescue efforts. “There are many people trapped by the floods, our priority is to rescue them,” Hashimi said.
In addition to causing chaos in the province and a death toll that could rise, authorities said the flash floods also caused extensive property damage and brought life to a standstill in Baghlan. “The whole old city [de Baghlan] It is under water,” a resident of the area, who identified himself as Toryalai, told Efe.
The destruction was not limited to this northern province, but dozens of other regions of the country were also affected by the non-stop rains of recent days.
“We are collecting information about the victims, because there were many flash floods in other provinces such as Takhar or Kunduz,” the spokesperson for the Ministry of Disaster Management, Janan Sayeq, told Efe.
In recent months, Afghanistan has experienced heavy snowfall, torrential rains and flash floods, resulting in the deaths of more than 130 people and the destruction of thousands of homes, according to official data, in addition to about 50 today in Baghlan.
The Asian country is one of the most vulnerable in the world to climate change and the least prepared to adapt, according to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Adding to the situation of vulnerability is the interruption of much of international aid and the freezing of the country’s funds after the Taliban took power in August 2021.
Source: Observadora
