Afghan flooding leaves 100 people dead
KABUL, Afghanistan — Heavy flooding has killed at least 100 people and injured scores of others as heavy seasonal rains drenched northern and eastern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.
State minister for disaster management Ghulam Bahawudin Jilani said that in northern Parwan province, water inundated the central city of Charikar, where the health ministry said the local hospital was partially destroyed and many of the injured were being transferred to the capital, Kabul.
The provincial spokeswoman, Wahida Shahkar, said rescue teams were still working to find people buried under destroyed houses. The head of the provincial hospital, Abdul Qasim Sangin, said several children were among the dead and some of the injured are in critical condition.
On a highway just east of Kabul, at least eight people, including two children, drowned and 14 others were injured when the floodwaters swept the cars they were in away, according to spokesman Ahmad Tameem Azimi.
The flooding waters and rushing mud in the mountainous Parwan province carried thousands of large rocks that caused major injuries and destroyed entire homes, burying people under the rubble.
Shahkar said the flooding started in the central part of the province overnight, after heavy rains, and destroyed many homes.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in a statement ordered aid be delivered to Parwan and other provinces while expressing his condolences to the victims’ families.