AFGHANISTAN: Floods kill 40 in Urozgan province

KABUL, 22 November 2006 (IRIN) - At least 40 people, including women and children, have been killed and hundreds of houses destroyed after recent flash floods triggered by torrential rains hit southern Urozgan province, local officials said on Wednesday.

“According to our information from the area, floods have killed 40 people and injured 20 others in Choraee, Khas Urozgan, Char Chino and Dehrawat districts,” Abdul Qauim, Qauimi, spokesman for Urozgan’s governor, told IRIN.

Some 300 houses and hundreds of acres of farmland have also been destroyed in the past three days in several districts of Urozgan province, local authorities said.

“Flood-affected people are in urgent need of assistance but we don’t have the means or resources to help them,” Qauimi asserted.”

Quaimi said that a recently built bridge which linked Char Chino district with Dehrawat district was also destroyed during the flooding.

Last week, deadly flooding in the western Badghis province killed some 60 people in Balamurghab and Ghormach districts, while 100 more people are still missing. In total, nearly 5,000 families were badly affected by the floods.

While commenting on this, Ehsan Zia, Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), said that they have sent a team to the flood-affected areas in Urozgan to assess the damage.

Dan McNorton, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) public information officer, said that 3.5 mt of medical supplies from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) had been dispatched to the area to assist flood-affected families.

Meanwhile, local officials in the western Farah province have also called for assistance for hundreds of flood-affected families. The floods there killed 18 people and destroyed a number of houses in Purchaman district this week.

On 10 November, floods also killed at least nine people in Behsoud district of eastern Nangrahar province, officials said.

Besides flooding, the impoverished, war-torn country has also suffered harsh drought this year affecting some 1.9 million people. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Afghanistan on Monday called for US $48 million to buy 74,000 mt of food for drought-affected people and those facing food shortages during the forthcoming winter.