Heavy rain adds to Afghanistan's crises

SHINWARI (Afghanistan) • As heavy rain poured down on his village in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, Mr Meya, a 57-year-old farmer, gathered his wife and daughters and rushed from their home towards the safety of the mountains.

Looking back, he saw a thunderous wave of water tearing through the village - and his wife being swept away in the storm.

"At that moment, I completely lost control," said Mr Meya, who goes by one name.

Days later, as he and his neighbours salvaged what they could from the wreckage, Mr Meya stared at his destroyed village in dismay. His wife had drowned. His house was destroyed. His two cows and three goats were killed.

His jewellery and all of his cash - around US$400 (S$552) - had been washed away in the flood.

Over the past week, flash floods across eastern, central and southern Afghanistan have killed at least 43 people and injured 106 more, according to Mr Mohammad Nasim Haqqani, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Disaster Management.

The floods' toll, local officials say, is likely to rise as more bodies are discovered. Around 790 homes have been damaged or destroyed in the flooding, which has affected nearly 4,000 families, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The flooding is the latest blow to Afghanistan, which has been seized by an economic collapse and a spate of natural disasters and deadly terrorist attacks in recent months.

An earthquake in June in eastern Afghanistan killed around 1,000 people and destroyed the homes of thousands more. The latest terrorist attack in the capital, Kabul, killed at least 21 people and wounded 33 others, officials said.

The back-to-back crises have tested the Taliban's ability to provide security and badly needed emergency assistance, even as their government slides further into pariah state status.

The Taliban's decision to close girls' secondary schools indefinitely in March, and the public revelation this month that the Taliban had been sheltering Al-Qaeda's leader in Kabul, have increasingly alienated the country from Western donors.

For millions of Afghans, the recent devastation has also underscored how even after the end of 20 years of war, a respite that many had hoped for remains out of reach.

On Wednesday morning, dozens of families gathered in Tai Qamari village, in the eastern province of Parwan, to salvage what they could from the flooding wreckage.

Dozens of cattle - crucial assets for farmers here - had been washed away in the flood, along with the two bridges connecting the village to surrounding towns.

The wells that provided water to residents were filled with mud. In the courtyard of one destroyed home, apricots and berries - once a family's garden - stuck out from the muddied earth.

One woman in a blue headscarf had just returned from a neighbouring village where she had gone to borrow some clothes for her children. Looking at the wreckage, she began to cry.

"My nerves are broken," she said. "My whole being is destroyed."

NYTIMES