About 40 people have been killed and 150 are missing in flash floods in north-eastern Afghanistan's Nouristan province, local officials said Thursday (July 29th).
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About 40 people were killed last night in flash floods
" in Kamdesh district, about 200 km northeast of Kabul, where a rescue operation is underway, said Saeedullah Nuristani, head of the provincial council .
Around 150 people are still missing and nearly 80 houses have been destroyed.
Saeed Momand, a spokesman for the governor of Nouristan, told him more than 60 people were killed in the floods triggered by torrential rains.
The affected area is particularly difficult to access.
Such disasters are common in the country, especially in poor rural areas, where houses are often fragile and built in risk areas.
These incidents claim dozens of victims every year in the country.
A flood killed more than a hundred people in August 2020 in the city of Charikar, capital of Parwan province, about sixty kilometers north of Kabul.
Rescue and delivery of aid after natural disasters, especially in isolated areas, are often hampered by the lack of equipment and infrastructure in this country impoverished by forty years of war.