Rivers of mud have overwhelmed people, swallowed up thousands of houses and destroyed hectares of crops. Unusually heavy seasonal rains have caused flash floods, especially in northeast Afghanistan, wreaking death and devastation. At the moment there are more than 300 victims, especially in the districts of Baghalan Jadid and Burqa, according to data from the WFP (World Food Programme), while for the Taliban authorities the toll, although provisional, is “131 deaths and more than one hundreds injured.” The estimate is «probably destined to rise, the local authorities admitted. “Many people are missing,” declared Interior Ministry spokesperson Abdul Mateen Qani.
Flood in Brazil, over 100 dead. The illuminated Christ the Redeemer
Afghanist, search for bodies under the mud
The Baghalan provincial department for disaster management assured that rescue workers were searching for “any victims under the mud and rubble, with the help of the army and police security forces”. The state of emergency has been proclaimed throughout the north-east of the country, where “the distribution of food, medicines and first aid kits has also begun”, the Ministry of Defense said. With the improvement of the weather conditions, moreover , «the air force began to evacuate the residents», transferring more than one hundred wounded to hospitals. «They called me to tell me that my house was flooded, but when I arrived I couldn’t do anything. My house and all my life were swept away,” Jan Mohammad Din Mohammad, a 45-year-old from Pol-e Khomri, the capital of Baghlan, told AFP. His family is made up of a wife, six children aged between 8 and 16, a disabled mother and sister “I don’t know where to take them,” he concluded in despair. The spokesperson of the Taliban regime, Zabihullah Mujahid, expressed the government’s “deep condolences” for the victims of the provinces of Badakhshan (north-east), Ghor (central-west) and Herat (west), as well as that of Baghlan.
Monstrous hurricanes, the climate scientists’ alarm for the summer of 2024
Afghanistan vulnerable nation
Afghanistan is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change: however, extremely poor and isolated from the rest of the world since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, it is also one of the least equipped to deal with its consequences. The EU has already expressed its closeness to the affected country, assuring that “it will, as always, stand by the Afghan people”. The US envoy for women, the Afghan-American Rina Amiri, called on the Taliban “to face the negative consequences caused by climate change” in a country already devastated by four decades of war. Afghanistan experienced a very dry winter, which made it difficult for the soil to absorb rain. To make matters worse, there was an unusually wet spring. And the warning hasn’t passed yet because it could rain again. Since mid-April, flash floods have already caused around a hundred victims in ten provinces and no region has been spared. In addition to the loss of human lives, these climatic phenomena have caused enormous financial losses, submerging much agricultural land in a country where 80% of the more than 40 million Afghans depend on agriculture for their survival.
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