Islamabad: Ten members of a family were killed overnight in a village in the capital of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province due to heavy rainfall and flooding, local officials said on Sunday.
Rescue teams are searching for the remaining victims after four bodies were recovered, the head of the information and culture department, Zabihullah Amiri, said in a statement. There are no reports of survivors from the family.
Flooding has deepened Afghanistan’s already dire humanitarian crisis, adding to the death toll caused by multiple natural disasters in recent years.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement that floods in the past few weeks have affected at least 80,000 people in the country.
This month, Afghan authorities reported more than 400 deaths due to flash floods across different provinces. Baghlan province, in the north, was hit the hardest.
Extreme weather events such as flash floods and droughts are on the rise in Afghanistan. Experts blame the climate crisis for this. The country remains among the world’s top 10 climate-impacted nations, despite having a negligible carbon footprint.
After decades of wars and conflicts, Afghanistan is ill-prepared to cope with the consequences of climate change.
The country is still reeling from the multiple earthquakes earlier this year and severe flooding in March.
–IANS/DPA