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Aid Groups Descend on Afghan Village Buried by Landslides ‘No Hope’ for Those Buried by Mudslide, Afghan Official Says
(about 3 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — More than 2,000 people were feared dead Saturday as aid agencies rushed to the scene of landslides in northeastern Afghanistan that buried parts of a remote village in nearly thirty feet of mud. Thousands more have been displaced by the landslides, which occurred Friday morning after weeks of heavy rainfall, marking one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters in more than a decade. KABUL, Afghanistan — A day after a huge landslide buried much of a village in northeastern Afghanistan, there appeared to be little hope that any survivors would be found, Afghan officials said Saturday.
By Saturday morning, an array of aid agencies had descended on the village of Abi Barak in the Argo district of Badakhshan Province, near the borders with China and Tajikistan. A delegation of high-level officials was also on its way to the affected areas with cash to aid displaced families. Various United Nations agencies, as well as the Afghan Red Crescent Society and other nongovernmental organizations, were already on the ground, the United Nations said. Local officials fear that more than 2,000 people are dead, entombed in a blanket of earth nearly 30 feet deep. Officials are expected to designate the site, in the remote village of Abi Barak in Badakhshan Province, a mass grave.
But the task of recovery, given the scale of the disaster, was expected to be onerous. “There is no hope for those buried under the mud to be rescued,” said Mohammad Zikeria Sawda, a member of Parliament from Badakhshan, who visited the area on Saturday.
“I believe it is beyond human capability to even remove all of the dead bodies,” Shah Waliullah Adeeb, the governor of Badakhshan, said Friday. “It will take months for machinery to complete the search for bodies.” President Hamid Karzai declared Sunday a national day of mourning and ordered all flags flown at half-staff. He also asked that Afghan citizens, businesspeople and aid groups come to the assistance of those affected by the landslides, calling the episode a “human tragedy.”
The extent of the devastation was also unclear, in part because it was difficult to communicate with the area because the landslides had knocked down cellphone towers, officials said. But the exact number of dead remained unknown a day after the initial landslides. Whole portions of Abi Barak have been buried by landslides, freezing entire families in place beneath it and thwarting efforts to claw people out. It appeared that almost half of the mountain had simply fallen on top of Abi Barak.
The United Nations, which is helping to coordinate the relief effort, said that humanitarian supplies in the area, such as blankets and food, were adequate and that emergency funds would be available if more was needed. Afghan officials said that 130 tons of flour, 60 tons of rice and 10 tons of sugar were headed to the area. “It is very difficult for rescue teams to operate and take out the bodies from the mud,” said Gul Ahmad Bedar, the deputy governor of Badakhshan Province. “Even the advance machinery cannot operate usefully in taking out the bodies from some of the areas.”
From the White House Rose Garden, President Obama said Friday, “Just as the United States has stood with the people of Afghanistan through a difficult decade, we stand ready to help our Afghan partners as they respond to this disaster.” The possibility that yet another chunk of earth might cleave from the nearby mountain kept rescue workers on high alert.
Natural disasters are a particularly cruel feature of life in Afghanistan, which is already contending with a deadly insurgency, crippling poverty and a flagging economy. Avalanches, floods and landslides claim dozens of lives each year. The fear was not idle. Among the houses buried beneath the mud on Friday was one where a young couple had just been married, local officials told television news stations. When neighbors rushed to the scene, a second landslide trapped the would-be rescuers as well.
“There have now been more Afghans killed through natural disasters in the past seven days than all of 2013,” said Mark Bowden, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan. “It buried so many families, including the house where the wedding party was going on,” said Hajji Sayedi, the district governor of Argo, where the village is. “When others rushed to rescue those trapped under the mud, another landslide went through the village, burying all those who came to help.”
With some areas difficult to reach, the extent of the damage from the landslides on Friday may not be known for some time, the organization said. Thousands of residents from the area have been evacuated from their homes. Aid agencies were mobilizing assistance throughout Saturday, with United Nations staff members coordinating the distribution of food, water and blankets and arranging for emergency shelter for the homeless.
The northern part of the country has been plagued by flooding in recent weeks, with more than 100 people dead or missing and thousands displaced before Friday. Officials said that villages in the Argo district and elsewhere remained at risk for landslides, and the government was working to evacuate the most vulnerable residents to temporary housing in tents, while heavy equipment was moved to Abi Barak. Officials said that about 500 villagers from the surrounding area were handed shovels and pickaxes to work alongside soldiers and others to unearth the bodies.
“We have sent five loaders and excavators to the village to remove the dirt and bring out the bodies and rescue the potential survivors,” Wais Barmak, the Afghan minister of rural rehabilitation and development and deputy head of natural disaster management, said late Friday. “This disaster is unprecedented, at least in the last few years.” A shipment of 60 tons of food arrived Saturday from neighboring Kunduz Province, welcome relief for the thousands of villagers along the perimeter of the disaster site. A high-level delegation of Afghan officials also flew to the affected region on Saturday morning. Along with tents, the delegation delivered blankets and cash — up to $1,000 for each dead family member, officials said.
Afghanistan’s second vice president, Karim Khalili, expressed deep condolences at the site of the disaster and promised that the government would continue to do all it could to assist the survivors. He said 230 tons of wheat and flour had been delivered by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.
Mr. Bedar, the deputy governor, said: “Since yesterday, we have been only able to discover 15 dead bodies — most of them women and children. We have one or two survivors from each family, mostly the elders who could flee when the mudslide happened.”
Different organizations have been trying to compile a list of the missing, with some estimates as high as 2,700. But with the village buried under as much as 200 feet of mud at the deepest points, it may be impossible to ever recover many bodies.
“We will offer the funeral prayers for those buried in the mud in absentia,” said the Badakhshan Province governor, Shah Waliullah Adeeb. “There is nothing else we can do.”