Rescuers struggle to reach Afghanistan flood-hit areas

SHEIKH JALAL, Afghanistan: Emergency aid and rescue teams struggled on Sunday to reach areas of northern Afghanistan hardest hit by flash floods that killed hundreds, AFP journalists saw.

Heavy rains caused flash flooding in several provinces in Afghanistan on Friday.

Northern Baghlan was the worst impacted, with efforts to deliver aid hampered by destruction to roads and bridges wrought when the floods ripped through the province.

In Sheikh Jalal, about a two-hour drive from Burka, one of the most devastated areas, AFP journalists saw aid trucks full of food, military vehicles, rescue workers and local residents stuck where roads had been completely washed out.

The military was using heavy machinery to pave the way, as well as to free aid trucks stuck in the mud.

Mohammad Ali Aryanfar, part of a team from the Turkish Hak Humanitarian Relief Association trying to deliver food to Burka, said they had been on the road since early morning on Sunday but were blocked in Sheikh Jalal.

“Our compatriots there (in Burka) need assistance and we pray that the road opens and we reach the area,” he told AFP.

“People´s houses have been destroyed and they don´t have anything, they don´t have shelters,” he added.

The United Nations World Food Programme shared a photo on social media site X of WFP-stamped bags of flour strapped to donkeys´ backs, saying it had to “resort to every alternative to get food to the survivors who lost everything” in Baghlan, as most of the affected areas were “inaccessible by trucks”.

The Taliban government refugees ministry said on Sunday that 315 people had been killed and more than 1,600 people were injured in the flooding in Baghlan.