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Afghan Landslide

2,700 feared dead or missing; rescue ops end

Reuters, Kabul
Afghan officials yesterday gave up hope of finding any survivors from a landslide in the remote northeast, with the number killed or missing put at between a few hundred and as many as 2,700.
International organisations and Afghan officials said at least 300 mud brick homes were buried on Friday, but precise information on the number killed was hard to come by in the impoverished province bordering Tajikistan. A spokesman for the local governor put the number in excess of 2,100. The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (lOM)said 2,700 were dead or missing.
Ari Gaitanis, a spokesman for the United Nations' Afghanistan mission, estimated 2,000 died, reported GNN.
"The scale of this landslide is absolutely devastating, with an entire village practically wiped away," IOM Afghanistan Chief of Mission Richard Danziger said. "Hundreds of families have lost everything and are in immense need of assistance."
The United Nations said the focus was now on the more than 4,000 people displaced, either directly as a result of the landslide or as a precautionary measure from villages assessed to be at risk. The IOM said over 14,000 people were affected.
Their main needs are water, medicine, food and emergency shelter, said Ari Gaitanis.
Officials expressed concern the unstable hillside above the site of the disaster may cave in again, threatening the homeless as well as the LIN and local rescue teams working there.
Villagers and a few dozen police, equipped with only basic digging tools, resumed their search when daylight broke but it soon became clear there was no hope of finding survivors buried in the deep mud and rubble.
"Seven members of my family were here, four or five of them were killed ... I am also half alive, what can I do?" said an elderly woman, her hair covered in a pink shawl.
Dotted with villages of mud-brick homes nestled in valleys beside bare slopes, Badakhshan province has been hit by several deadly landslides in recent years.
The side of the mountain above Abi-Barak collapsed at around Ham on Friday as people were trying to recover belongings and livestock after a smaller landslip hit a few hours earlier.
Hundreds of homes were destroyed in the landslides that were triggered by torrential rain. Officials worry another section of the mountainside could collapse at any time.
The Afghan military flew rescue teams to the area yesterday, as the remote mountain region is served by only narrow, poor roads which have themselves been damaged by more than a week of heavy rain.
"We have managed to get one excavator into the area, but digging looks hopeless," Colonel Abdul Qadeer Sayad, a deputy police chief of Badakhshan, told Reuters.
He said the sheer size of the area affected, and the depth of the mud, meant that only modern machinery could help.
Nato-led coalition troops were on standby to assist yesterday but said the Afghan government had not asked for help.
Hundreds of people camped out overnight in near freezing conditions,
although some were given tents. Officials distributed food and water.
Seasonal rains and spring snow melt have caused devastation across large swathes of northern Afghanistan, killing more than 100 people before this latest disaster.
Police said they had provided a security ring around the area, which has been relatively free of insurgent attacks. The Taliban said they were also willing to provide security.