Continuing climate-driven disasters in Afghanistan should be a cause for serious concern
 "Heavy rains in eastern Afghanistan kill at least 40, damage homes")
Representative image: Heavy rains in eastern Afghanistan have killed at least 40 people and injured nearly 350. Photo: Reuters AP Islamabad
Heavy rains have killed at least 40 people and injured nearly 350 in eastern Afghanistan, Taliban officials said on Tuesday.
Among the dead from Monday’s storm were five people from the same family whose roof collapsed on their home in Suruk Lod district, provincial spokesman Sedikullah Quraishi said. Four other family members were injured.
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Health ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman Amar said 347 injured people were taken to Nangarhar provincial regional hospital for treatment from Jalalabad, the provincial capital, and nearby districts.
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, he said. The damage was still being assessed.
Abdul Wali, 43, said most of the damage happened within an hour. The wind was so strong that it blew everything into the air, followed by heavy rain. His four-year-old daughter suffered minor injuries, he said.
Aid groups rushed in supplies and mobile teams.
Salma Ben Aissa, the International Rescue Committee’s representative in Afghanistan, said the committee was carrying out assessments and providing emergency medical services.
“The continuing climate-driven disasters in Afghanistan are a cause for grave concern. Decades of conflict and economic crisis have meant the country faces one setback after another as it tries to recover. The sad reality is that without a significant increase in support from donors and the international community, many more people will lose their lives,” she said in a statement.
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.
