“About 40 people were killed last night in flash floods”, in Kamdesh district, about 200 kilometers northeast of Kabul, Saeedullah Nuristani, head of the provincial council of Nouristan, said on Thursday (July 29th). A rescue operation is underway, as 150 people are still missing and nearly 80 houses have been destroyed, he said.
Saeed Momand, a spokesperson for the governor of Nouristan, said more than 60 people were killed in the floods triggered by torrential rains. The affected area is particularly difficult to access.
Slow relief operations
Such disasters are common in the country, especially in rural and poor areas, where houses are often fragile and built in risky areas. These incidents claim dozens of victims every year in Afghanistan. A flood caused more than a hundred deaths in August 2020 in the city of Charikar, capital of Parwan province, about sixty kilometers north of Kabul.
Rescue and delivery of aid after natural disasters, especially in isolated areas, are often hampered by the lack of equipment and infrastructure in this country impoverished by forty years of war.
The disaster comes as the government struggles to contain an all-out Taliban offensive, which has taken over large rural areas of the country in the past three months. Afghanistan, whose health system remains extremely precarious despite the support of foreign donors, is also facing a third wave of Covid-19.