floods kill 50 people in the West, a few days after previous deadly floods in the country

The floods destroyed some 2,000 homes and damaged thousands more.

Flash floods in western Afghanistan have killed at least 50 people, provincial police announced on Saturday (May 18). “Fifty residents of Ghor province were killed by Friday’s floods and a number of others are missing”, said provincial police spokesperson Abdul Rahman Badri. According to him, the floods destroyed some 2,000 homes and damaged thousands of others.

“These terrible floods also killed thousands of livestock, (…) destroyed hundreds of hectares of agricultural land, hundreds of bridges (…) and thousands of trees”he added, specifying that roads had been “completely blocked”.

Other provinces in northern Afghanistan were hit by flash floods late last week. At least 300 people died in these floods, particularly in Baghlan province, according to the World Food Program and Taliban officials. Further bad weather is to be feared, warned the World Health Organization (WHO). This precipitation comes after an abnormally dry winter and several years of drought in this country, which is among the most exposed to climate change, according to experts.

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