Flash floods kill at least 20 in Afghanistan’s latest disaster

At least 20 people have been killed in flash floods in eastern Afghanistan, in the latest blow to a war-torn country reeling from a spate of natural disasters.

Officials said the deluge, which hit a district in the eastern Logar province on Sunday evening, has devastated vast swathes of farmlands and destroyed around 3,000 homes.

Locals told the Telegraph that the flood was the worst they had seen in three decades.

“The flood caught us off guard,” said Nabiullah, who lives in Koshi district, at the centre of the crisis. “It was so tragic sight to see our children, our women being drowned. There was chaos everywhere and those who fled into the mountains survived.

“Everything in my home including grains was destroyed by the flood. My house was flattened and a small water stream now flows through that land,” added the 32-year-old, who joined dozens of families that scurried up a nearby mountain for safety.

Mohammad Zalmai, a 62-year-old farmer, survived alongside his wife and daughters after climbing a tree to escape the thunderous waves of water that washed away the road.

“The flood washed away everything,” he said. “All I have now is the old clothes I am wearing.”

The deluge comes as Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are battered by flooding.

In the last month, at least 165 people have been killed and thousands have been displaced in downpours in eastern, central, and southern Afghanistan, Mohammad Nasim Haqqani, a spokesperson for the country’s Ministry of Disaster Management said. Locals say the death toll will be three times higher.

In neighbouring Pakistan, recurrent floods in the last two months have killed more than 650 people, with little respite in sight.

Balochistan – the country’s largest and most impoverished province, which borders Afghanistan – is the worst hit, reporting 200 deaths, including 58 children. Officials say 22,000 houses and 280,000 hectares of crops have been destroyed.

Meanwhile in India, at least 50 people have died amid intense monsoon rains.

In Afghanistan, the flooding is the latest of a spate of crises which have hit the country, which has now been under Taliban rule for a year following the fall of Kabul last summer.

Around 25 million people, more than half of the country’s population, are now living in poverty with no food to eat. Nationwide, nearly one million jobs have been lost from the labour market this year as businesses struggle to stay afloat and women and girls remain locked out of secondary schools and the formal economy.