8 killed, 4 injured in flash floods in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province

Kabul [Afghanistan], July 28 (ANI): A total of eight people, including seven children and a woman died due to floods in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, and four others have sustained injuries, a media report said on Thursday.

As many as 8 deaths were reported in the Spin Boldak, Jhari and Arghandab districts of the province and helicopters have been dispatched to provide assistance to the injured, TOLO News reported citing a Kandahar official.

Spin Boldak’s press officer Mohammad Haqmal said that the Spin Boldak-Chaman crossing has been closed for traffic and commercial vehicles due to heavy rains, it added.

Heavy rains and flash floods in the Panjshir and Takhar provinces of Afghanistan also damaged property extensively.

Earlier on Friday, an officer of the Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs of Panjshir province, Mohammad Akram said, “Heavy rain and flash floods swept out several gardens, farmlands and bridges in Nawabad and Abrina villages of Abshar district on Thursday night.”

He said that the property damage was too huge to survey and did not specify whether there was any loss of life. However, he said a survey was underway to identify the affected families, Xinhua reported.

The downpour and floods also damaged parts of the Ashkamish district of northern Takhar province on Thursday night.

A district official, Noor Alam, said that a survey had been initiated to determine the damage to property and possible loss of life caused by the flooding.

In the last week, around 39 people died in incidents of flash flooding with new districts in the east, south, southeast, and central regions of Afghanistan impacted by heavy rains.

“Since 5 July, flash floods have reportedly killed 39 people across five provinces,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a flood update.

The heavy rains damaged or destroyed around 2,900 houses, a tenfold increase since the last reporting period, and also disrupted livelihoods. Critical civilian infrastructure such as roads and bridges have also been impacted.

Multiple localized assessments and relief operations are ongoing. OCHA said that it continues to coordinate the emergency response on behalf of humanitarian partners in all four regions affected – central, eastern, southern, and south-eastern regions.

Over the past month, about 400 people reportedly have lost their lives due to monsoon rains and flooding in Afghanistan. (ANI)

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