KABUL: Sixty-two people were killed in one day after deadly flash flooding ripped through northern Afghanistan on Friday.

A disaster management official in the northern province of Baghlan said heavy seasonal rains sparked the flooding, and residents were unprepared for the sudden rush of water.

“The number of dead in today’s flood in Baghlan province has risen to 62,” Hedayatullah Hamdard, the head of the provincial natural disaster management department, said. The toll “will probably increase”, he said, adding that light rain had continued into the night in multiple districts of the province.

Emergency personnel were “searching for any possible victims under the mud and rubble, with the help of security forces from the national army and police”, Hamdard said earlier. Dozens of tents, blankets and food were provided to those who lost their homes, he added.

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Video footage seen on social media showed huge torrents of muddy water swamping roads and bodies shrouded in white and black cloth.

In one video clip, children are heard crying and a group of men are looking at floodwaters, in which bits of broken wood and debris from homes can be seen.

Since mid-April, flash flooding and other floods have left about 100 people dead in 10 of Afghanistan’s provinces, with no region entirely spared. Farmland has been swamped in a country where 80 per cent of the more than 40 million people depend on agriculture to survive. Rains also caused heavy damage in north-eastern Badakhshan province and central Ghor province on Friday.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said authorities would provide support to those impacted by the flooding across the country.

The government “expresses its deep sympathy with the families of dead and wounded, and instructs the ministry of natural disaster management, ministries of defence and interior, and provincial authorities to spare no resource in rescue efforts”, he said in a statement on X.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2024