PESHAWAR, May 3: The death toll from landsliding in Afghanistan has crossed the 2,000 mark, officials say.
Western media quoted Shah Waliullah, the Badakhshan governor, as saying that the landslides from a mountain obliterated houses in Argo village following rains on 2 May.
The provincial police chief of Badakhshan, Maj Gen Faziluddin Hayar, said residents of surrounding areas had also left homes and taken shelter on the mountains.
He said the rescue teams had been sent to the affected areas but that they were facing problems in retrieving the dead from under the mud owing to lack of facilities.
Quoting Naweed Forotan, a spokesman for the Badakhshan governor, media reports said more than 2,100 people from 300 families had been killed.
Although villagers and policemen, having simple digging tools, started the search, they had dwindling hopes about rescuing survivors buried in almost 100 metres of mud.
According to the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, authorities were now focusing on the more than 4,000 people displaced. Thousands have been displaced either by Friday’s landslide or they have left the villages at risk as precaution.
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