ISLAMABAD (AP) — Heavy rains in eastern Afghanistan have killed at least 40 people and wounded nearly 350 others, Taliban officials said Tuesday. Separately, at least 17 people died when a bus overturned on a main road, official media reported.
Sharafat Zaman Amar, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, confirmed that 40 people were killed in Monday’s storm and 347 injured were taken for treatment to the regional hospital in Nangarhar from Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, and nearby districts.
The dead included five members of the same family who died when the roof of their house collapsed in Surkh Rod district, provincial spokesman Sediqullah Quraishi said. Four other family members were injured.
About 400 homes and 60 electricity poles were destroyed in Nangarhar province, Quraishi said. Power was out in many areas and communication was limited in the city of Jalalabad, he said. Damage was still being assessed, Quraishi said.
Abdul Wali, 43, said most of the damage occurred within an hour. “The wind was so strong that everything was blown into the air. Then came heavy rain,” he said. His 4-year-old daughter was slightly injured, he said.
In May, exceptionally heavy rainfall killed more than 300 people and thousands of homes destroyed, mainly in the northern province of Baghlan, the World Food Programme said.
The official Taliban news agency Bakhtar reported that at least 17 people were killed and 34 others injured when a bus overturned on the highway between Kabul and Balkh in the northern province of Baghlan on Tuesday morning.
The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but poor road conditions and reckless driving are often cited as causes of such incidents in the country.
