Taliban officials said Tuesday that at least 40 people were killed and around 350 injured in a powerful storm that brought heavy rains to eastern Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in the region, a bus overturned on a major highway, killing at least 17 people, state media reported.
Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman Amar confirmed that 40 people were killed in Monday’s storm and 347 people were taken to Nangarhar Regional Hospital from Jalalabad, the provincial capital, and nearby districts.
People gather to clear the rubble from a house damaged by a landslide triggered by heavy rains in the Surkh Road area of ​​Jalalabad. (Shafiullah Kakar/AP)
The dead included five members of the same family who were killed when the roof of their house collapsed in Suruk Lod district, provincial spokesman Sedikullah Quraishi said. Four other members of the family were injured.
Quraishi said some 400 houses and 60 electricity poles had been destroyed across Nangarhar province. Power was cut in many areas and communications were limited in the city of Jalalabad. The damage was still being assessed, he added.
Resident Abdul Wali, 43, said much of the damage happened within an hour.
“The wind was so strong it blew everything into the air, then it started raining heavily,” he said, adding that his 4-year-old daughter suffered minor injuries.
Storm victims are treated at a hospital in Jalalabad city, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. (Shafiullah Kakar/AP)
According to the World Food Programme, unusually heavy rains in May killed more than 300 people and destroyed thousands of homes, mainly in the northern province of Baghlan.
Meanwhile, the Taliban’s official Bakhtar news agency reported that at least 17 people were killed and 34 injured when a bus overturned on the main road connecting Kabul and Balkh in the northern Baghlan province on Tuesday morning.
The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but poor road conditions and careless driving are often cited as reasons for such accidents in the country.
