Flash floods in the province of Baghlan, in northern Afghanistan, have left at least 311 dead, according to a provisional report communicated on Saturday May 11 to Agence France-Presse (AFP) by the World Food Program (WFP) . Previously, another UN agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), had reported more than 200 deaths in the catastrophic floods that occurred on Friday.
The Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday that “operations to distribute food, medicines and first aid kits to victims had started” in the Northeast. “The air force began evacuating residents as the weather improved” and transferred more than a hundred injured people to hospitals, he added.
A state of emergency was declared in regions where rivers of mud suddenly engulfed thousands of homes and hectares of crops, according to the same source.
The floods in this abnormally rainy spring also affected other provinces of this country which is very vulnerable to climate change, such as Ghor, in the West, or Badakhshan, in the North-East, also causing enormous financial losses.
Submerged agricultural land
Government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid spoke to AFP on Saturday “dozens of dead” in these various provinces. He expressed the day before “deep sympathy” from the authorities to the victims of the floods. “We learned the sad news that dozens of our compatriots had died or were injured in floods in the provinces of Baghlan, Badakhchan and Ghor”he wrote on.
The head of the Baghlan provincial authority, Hedayatullah Hamdard, reported 62 deaths on Friday evening. “Seasonal rains caused flash floods and people, who had not been able to prepare, were unable to save themselves. This is why we see such losses”, according to him. Videos posted on social media show violent torrents of mud covering the streets, as well as bodies wrapped in shrouds.
Since mid-April, flash floods and floods have already caused around a hundred deaths in ten provinces of the country, no region of which has been completely spared, according to the authorities. They have also submerged much agricultural land, in a country where 80% of the more than 40 million Afghans depend on agriculture for their survival.
Afghanistan, which experienced a very dry winter which made it more difficult for the soil to absorb rain, is very vulnerable to climatic upheavals. This country, ravaged by four decades of war and which is among the poorest in the world, is one of the most poorly prepared to face the consequences of climate change according to scientists. Responsible for only 0.06% of greenhouse gas emissions, Afghanistan is the sixth most vulnerable country to climate change, according to them.