Kabul: The Taliban’s refugee ministry has said that the death toll from flooding in northern Afghanistan had reached 315, with more than 1,600 people injured.
This figure was announced a day after the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) stated that over 300 people had died and many were still missing, as authorities worked to rescue the injured.
The death toll is rapidly increasing, as the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior Affairs had earlier reported on Saturday that around 150 people had died in the floods.
The hardest-hit province, according to the WFP, is Baghlan, where over 1,000 homes have been destroyed. The UN agency is providing fortified biscuits to survivors of one of the many recent floods across the country.
Heavy rainfall on Friday caused flooding in various parts of Afghanistan.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, mentioned in a social media post on Saturday that “hundreds … have perished in these catastrophic floods, with many sustaining injuries.”
In addition to Baghlan, the provinces of Badakhshan in the northeast, central Ghor, and western Herat were severely affected, leading to significant financial losses, as reported by Mujahid on X.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) informed AFP on Saturday that more than 200 people had died and thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged in Baghlan alone.
The air force has begun evacuating people and has transported over 100 injured individuals to military hospitals, according to the Taliban Ministry of Defense on Saturday, without specifying the provinces.
“The Ministry of National Defense has initiated the distribution of food, medicine, and first aid to affected individuals by declaring a state of emergency in the impacted areas,” they stated.
Hedayatullah Hamdard, head of Baghlan’s natural disaster management department, previously told AFP that the death toll “will likely rise,” noting that light rain persisted into the night in multiple districts.
Residents were caught off guard by the sudden rush of water triggered by recent heavy rainfall, he added.
Emergency responders, aided by security forces from the national army and police, are searching for potential victims under the mud and debris, Hamdard explained.
Since mid-April, floods have claimed approximately 100 lives in 10 provinces of Afghanistan, affecting all regions, according to authorities.
In a country where 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture for survival, farmlands have been submerged.
Mohammad Akram Akbari, the provincial director of natural disaster management in Badakhshan, noted heavy financial losses in various areas due to floods, as reported by Al Jazeera.
He expressed concern about potential casualties in Tishkan district, where flooding blocked roads and cut off access to an area with approximately 20,000 residents.
