2,000 feared missing after landslide buries northeast Afghan village

May 02, 2014 08:51 pm | Updated 08:51 pm IST - Kabul, Afghanistan

An Afghan official has said around 2,000 people missing after landslide buried Ab-e-Khoshk, a northeast village in Argu district.

Earlier in the day, around 250 people were feared dead in the mudslide, police said.

“The mudslide damaged almost the entire village of Ab-e-Khoshk this afternoon,” said Fazluddin Ayyar, police chief of Badakhshan province.

“Our reports say that about 250 people including women and children have gone missing and the locals say all of them have died,” Mr. Ayyar told dpa .

He said that 200 houses and large areas of farmland were destroyed in the mudslide, which was triggered by heavy rain.

“The rescue teams have been dispatched to the area and are trying to evacuate the survivors,” he said Last week, some 100 people were killed and more than 7,000 were displaced by flash floods in four northern provinces.

Afghanistan’s northern and central areas suffer heavy rainfall in the spring.

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