Heavy rainfall from seasonal rains in Afghanistan and Pakistan unleashed flash floods that killed at least 44 people, leaving dozens others missing over the past three days.
About 31 death have so far been recorded in Afghanistan while in neighboring Pakistan 13 people died due to heavy rains and landslides as monsoon season continued to affect parts of the country.
The ruling Taliban’s appointed spokesman for Afghanistan’s State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management, Shafiullah Rahimi, said on Sunday that at least 31 people were killed, 74 were injured, 41 others were missing and about 250 livestock perished in the floods.
Rahimi said flash floods hit the capital, Kabul, the Maidan Wardak and Ghazni provinces.
He noted that the majority of the casualties were in west Kabul and Maidan Wardak.
The flooding brought further misery to the already suffering Afghanistan.
The UN humanitarian affairs agency in April, said the south Asian country is facing its third consecutive year of drought, its second year of severe economic hardship and the consequences of decades of war and natural disasters.
The provincial governor’s office in a statement said that hundreds of homes were either damaged or destroyed and the missing are believed to be under the rubble of collapsed homes.
The statement also said that hundreds of square miles of agricultural land were washed out and destroyed and the highway between Kabul and the central Bamiyan province was closed due to the floods.
In the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, nine people were said to have lost their lives over the last 48 hours in rain-related incidents.
According to police officer, Raja Mirza Hassan, in the Skardu area of the Gilgit Baltistan region, four family members died when a massive landslide hit their car.
A spokesman of the provincial disaster management authority, Taimur Khan, said heavy rainfall and thunderstorms damaged at least 74 houses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The provincial authorities declared an emergency in the Chitral district as rainfall triggered flash floods in the mountainous area.
According to the national disaster management authority, the country has witnessed 101 deaths including 16 women and 42 children since the start of monsoon from June 25.