2,100 buried alive in Afghanistan landslide
Frantic search for survivors under way as humanitarian crisis unfolds
A DESPERATE search for survivors involving international aid workers was under way last night after landslides destroyed a remote town in Afghanistan, killing an estimated 2,100 people in the process.
Teams from the United Nations, the Red Crescent and the British Department for International Development joined forces in the rescue mission after torrents of mud and earth swept through the town of Aab Barik in Badakhshan province in north-eastern Afghanistan on Friday.
The deadly landslides, which followed days of heavy rain, also left 4,000 people requiring shelter and food.
The aid workers are providing the homeless with tents,
4,000 are in need of food and shelter
clean water and medical supplies.
Eye witnesses described how two landslides struck Aab Barik in quick succession. The first slide, which was smaller, covered only a few houses. When people rushed to help, a second, bigger landslide came down, burying many more people.
Mohammad Seyas, deputy director of Afghanistan’s Natural Disaster Management Authority, said that efforts to find survivors were being hampered by adverse weather conditions and a series of subsequent landslides in the same area.
Heavy rain has caused severe flooding in the same area and displaced large numbers of people. People in area were aware of landslide risks.
The previous day, a smaller landslide in the area damaged 50 houses, but no one was killed. As it is feared that most of the victims’ bodies will not be recovered, the site is likely to be declared a mass grave by the United Nations. A memorial service took place yesterday.
The town of Aab Barik is in the remote province of Badakhshan close to the border with Tajiikistan. The people in this isolated are poor and the com- munications infrastructure is unreliable.
In addition to the military conflicts that cost thousands of Afghans their lives in recent years, the country has been subject to repeated disasters. In 2012, a landslide in Baghlan province in the same region killed 71 people. Authorities were not able to recover the vast majority of bodies then, and ended up declaring the site as a mass grave.
US president Barack Obama said yesterday: ‘On behalf of the American people, our thoughts are with the people of Afghanistan, who have experienced an awful tragedy.’