Flash floods in northern Afghanistan sweep away livelihoods, leaving hundreds dead and missing

ISLAMABAD– Trader Nazer Mohammad rushed home as soon as he heard about flash floods hitting the outskirts of a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan. When he got there, there was nothing left, including his family of five.

“Everything happened suddenly. I came home, but there was no house there, instead I saw the whole neighborhood covered in mud and water,” said Mohammad, 48. He said he buried his wife and his two 15-year-old sons. and 8 years old, but he is still looking for two daughters, who are around 6 and 11 years old.

The U.N. food agency estimated that unusually heavy seasonal rains in Afghanistan have left more than 300 dead and more than 1,000 homes destroyed, most of them in the northern province of Baghlan, which bore the brunt of Friday’s flooding.

Mohammad said on Sunday that he found the bodies of his wife and two children on Friday night on the outskirts of Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.

“I hope someone found my daughters alive,” she said, holding back tears. “In the blink of an eye I lost everything: family, home, belongings, now I have nothing left.”

Aid group Save the Children said some 600,000 people, half of them children, live in Baghlan’s five districts that have been severely affected by the floods. The group said it sent a “clinic on wheels” with mobile health and child protection teams to support children and their families.

“Lives and livelihoods have been devastated,” said Arshad Malik, national director of Save the Children. “Flash floods devastated villages, swept away houses and killed livestock. The children have lost everything. “Families still recovering from the economic impacts of three years of drought urgently need help.”

He said Afghanistan was the least prepared country to cope with climate change patterns, such as heavier seasonal rains, and needed help from the international community.

At least 70 people died in April due to heavy rains and flash floods in the country, which also destroyed some 2,000 homes, three mosques and four schools.