HERAT: Twenty -nine people died in two provinces in Afghanistan due to hail and heavy rains, authorities said Tuesday.
“Twenty -one people were killed and six others were injured” due to hail in the province of western Farah, said Mohammad Israel Sayar, head of the Disaster Management Department of the province.
The victims were members of two families who had gone to a picnic, he said.
In southern Kandahar, the Local Disaster Management Department said in a statement that eight people, including women and children, were killed in several places due to heavy rains.
“Today, four women who were busy washing the clothes were swept by the waters of the floods … and only a woman survived,” said the statement.
He added that a child drowned in Kandahar, while a roof collapsed in a family, killing a woman and three children.
Among the poorest countries in the world after decades of war, Afghanistan is particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, which scientists say they are promoting extreme climate.
It is classified as the sixth most vulnerable country for climate change.
Drought, floods, land degradation and decreased agricultural productivity are key threats, the representative of the UN Development Agency in Afghanistan, Stephen Stephen Rodriques said in 2023.
Sudden floods in May last year killed hundreds and flooded vast areas of agricultural lands in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of people depend on agriculture to survive.
