More than 100 people have been killed and thousands left homeless due to devastating flash floods in western and northern Afghanistan, officials said on Friday.
After three days of heavy rain in what is traditionally a wet period at the start of spring, thousands of homes have been engulfed by flood in four different provinces, Reuters reported.
The impoverished provincial authorities made desperate pleas for help as 55 bodies were recovered in the northern province of Jawzjan, police chief Faqer Mohammed Jawzjani said. Over the coming days, the number of dead people would only increase.
"Providing aid or help from the ground is impossible," he told Reuters. "We have carried 1,500 people to safe areas of neighboring districts by helicopter. We need emergency assistance from the central government and aid agencies."
There are reports of flooding in other provinces in the north and west, BBC News reported.
"Thousands of homes have been destroyed and thousands are suffering", Jowzjan's governor Boymurod Qoyinli told the BBC. He said that more than 80 people are missing and that 3,000 homes have been destroyed.
Thirty-three people had died in the neighboring Faryab province and another 80 were missing, the Faryab province governor said.
"Ten thousand families have been affected and more than 2,000 houses have been destroyed," Mohammadullah Batazhn said.
Another 13 people were killed in the provinces of Badghis and Sar-e Pol, local officials said.
The villagers' homes, which are largely built out of mud, were stuck in a perilous situation due to heavy rain and storms on Thursday night.
Three remote districts in the province were particularly badly affected, the governor told the BBC.
"Our correspondent travelled on board one of the rescue helicopters deployed by the security forces," BBC News reported. "He described a landscape where dozens of homes had been destroyed, many more submerged and villagers crouched on the roofs of their homes."
