Over 220,000 people affected by natural disasters in Afghanistan: Report

Kabul: Occurrences of floods and earthquakes across several provinces of Afghanistan have affected more than 223,000 people over the past several months, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report.

According to TOLOnews, more than 85,000 people in Afghanistan were severely affected by earthquakes in Paktika and Khost in June, whereas over 78,800 people were affected by heavy floods in the southern and eastern parts of the country in July and August.

“Many natural disaster-affected households lost homes, assets, and livestock, with worst-affected poor households likely in need of emergency humanitarian food assistance to prevent food consumption gaps and Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes,” OCHA said in a report.

Floods have not only affected the residential buildings in Afghanistan but have also caused excessive financial losses to farmers in the country as their harvests were hit by the floods.

“The floods that flowed hit the residences and agriculture lands,” TOLOnews reported quoting Salam Jan, a farmer.

In an earlier report, OCHA said that more than 24 million people are facing food shortages in Afghanistan.

The total number of flood-related fatalities was 147 the previous year, however, a significant increase of 75 per cent in the flood death toll was recorded this year, TOLOnews reported.

Almost 23 million Afghan people benefitting from at least one form of humanitarian aid delivered as the UN office’s Humanitarian Response Plan for Afghanistan seek to provide relief aid to at least 22.1 million people this year.

The heavy rains damaged or destroyed around 2,900 houses, a tenfold increase since the last reporting period, and also disrupted livelihoods. Critical civilian infrastructure such as roads and bridges have also been impacted.

OCHA said that it continues to coordinate the emergency response on behalf of humanitarian partners in all four regions affected – central, eastern, southern, and south-eastern regions.

Over the past month, about 400 people reportedly lost their lives due to monsoon rains and flooding in Afghanistan.