Heavy rains, floods kill 22 in Afghanistan

Afghan authorities said on Tuesday that extreme weather has left 22 people dead and 32 injured over the last 24 hours, including more than a dozen who were killed when torrential rainfall caused the roofs of houses to collapse overnight in eastern Afghanistan.

Storms and heavy rainfall that have caused landslides, flooding and lightning strikes across the country over the past two weeks have left more than 130 people dead and destroyed or damaged thousands of homes, authorities have said. The latest casualty figures from the Afghanistan National Disaster Authority come on top of dozens of deaths caused by heavy snowfall and floods earlier this year in Afghanistan, an impoverished country that is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events. The authority said the figures could increase further.

Large parts of the eastern city of Jalalabad were flooded overnight into Tuesday, with roof collapses killing 13 people and injuring another 19 in the city and surrounding districts, said Siddiqullah Quraishi, information director in the Information and Culture Directorate for the province of Nangarhar, of which Jalalabad is the main city. Quraishi said 104 people had to be airlifted to safety by helicopter in various parts of the province after they became stranded by floodwaters.

Hundreds of kilometres of roads in various parts of the country have been destroyed by floods and rockfalls over the past two weeks, while major highways linking Kabul with provinces in the north, east and west were closed.

Snow and heavy rain often trigger flash floods that kill scores, or even hundreds, of people at a time in Afghanistan.