Many women & children

Flooding in Afghanistan: more than 300 dead

(Bild: kameraOne (Screenshot))

According to the UN, more than 300 people have died in severe flooding in Afghanistan in the north-eastern province of Baghlan alone. The local civil protection agency stated that the majority of the dead were women and children.

According to a UN representative, one of the reasons for the high death toll was that people were living close to the water. The Ministry of Defense said it had sent rescue workers to the affected areas. The military was instructed to provide "every kind of assistance with all available resources" for the victims of this disaster.

Air force began evacuations
Images on online services showed wide rivers of muddy water flooding the streets. Rescue teams, with the help of the army and police, searched under mud and debris for possible further victims. As the weather improved on Saturday, evacuations began, as the air force explained. Hundreds of injured people were taken to hospitals, it said.

Large parts of farmland unusable
Around 100 people have died in previous floods in ten Afghan provinces since mid-April. The rainfall left large parts of the country's farmland temporarily unusable. 80 percent of Afghanistan's four million inhabitants depend on agriculture.

According to official figures, Friday's rainfall also caused severe damage in other provinces. In addition to Baghlan, Tachar and Badakhshan in the east and Ghor and Herat in the west are affected.

Afghanistan suffers greatly from climate change
The country is particularly hard hit by climate change. Due to the dry winter, the soil is less able to absorb rainfall. The floods are "a clear reminder" of how exposed Afghanistan is to climate change, wrote the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Richard Bennett, in the online service X (formerly Twitter).