Afghanistan avalanche toll rises to 162 amid rescue efforts
An Afghan girl carries shovels in a village close to an avalanche site in Panjshir province north of Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday.
AP, KABUL :
A senior Afghan military officer says the death toll from an avalanche caused by heavy winter snows in a mountainous valley northeast of the capital Kabul has risen to 162.
Gen. Kadam Shah Shahim, commander of the Afghan army’s Kabul Corps, says 1,000 troops had been deployed to Panjshir province, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Kabul, to assist rescue efforts. He says the toll is expected to rise.
Abdul Rahman Kabiri, the acting governor of Panjshir, said many people had been pulled alive from houses buried by the snow.
Heavy snows this week across four northeastern provinces caused deadly avalanches and flooding. Power to Kabul was cut and the Salang Tunnel connecting the north and south was closed.
Officials warned of an imminent humanitarian emergency in areas most severely hit by the bad weather, with snow sweeping through villages and blocking off roads.
“We haven’t seen this much snow, or this many avalanches, for 30 years,” said Abdul Rahman Kabiri, acting governor of the mountainous province of Panjshir, north of Kabul, where 186 people were killed and more than 100 injured in avalanches.
Despite bringing misery to so many people, the snow is vital for Afghanistan, where much of the rural population dependent on agriculture relies on snow melting in the mountains to sustain crops in the spring and summer.
Farming drives the troubled Afghan economy, with about three quarters of the people living in rural areas, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated in 2004.
Irrigation is not extensive in Afghanistan, most of which is semi-arid, and aid efforts over the past decade or more have focused on trying to extend it, with mixed results.
KABUL: Avalanches triggered by heavy snow have killed more than 100 people in mountainous areas of northern Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday, as rescuers battled to save dozens more trapped in the snow.
A senior Afghan military officer says the death toll from an avalanche caused by heavy winter snows in a mountainous valley northeast of the capital Kabul has risen to 162.
Gen. Kadam Shah Shahim, commander of the Afghan army’s Kabul Corps, says 1,000 troops had been deployed to Panjshir province, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Kabul, to assist rescue efforts. He says the toll is expected to rise.
Abdul Rahman Kabiri, the acting governor of Panjshir, said many people had been pulled alive from houses buried by the snow.
Heavy snows this week across four northeastern provinces caused deadly avalanches and flooding. Power to Kabul was cut and the Salang Tunnel connecting the north and south was closed.
Officials warned of an imminent humanitarian emergency in areas most severely hit by the bad weather, with snow sweeping through villages and blocking off roads.
“We haven’t seen this much snow, or this many avalanches, for 30 years,” said Abdul Rahman Kabiri, acting governor of the mountainous province of Panjshir, north of Kabul, where 186 people were killed and more than 100 injured in avalanches.
Despite bringing misery to so many people, the snow is vital for Afghanistan, where much of the rural population dependent on agriculture relies on snow melting in the mountains to sustain crops in the spring and summer.
Farming drives the troubled Afghan economy, with about three quarters of the people living in rural areas, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated in 2004.
Irrigation is not extensive in Afghanistan, most of which is semi-arid, and aid efforts over the past decade or more have focused on trying to extend it, with mixed results.
KABUL: Avalanches triggered by heavy snow have killed more than 100 people in mountainous areas of northern Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday, as rescuers battled to save dozens more trapped in the snow.
