AFP, Kabul

Heavy rain and storms have killed at least 121 people over two weeks across Afghanistan and Pakistan, disaster officials in both countries said yesterday.

Stormy weather has brought rain sweeping across Afghanistan since late March, causing floods, landslides, and damaging homes and crops.

“Since March 26 till today, 77 people have been killed and 137 wounded across the country because of the floods and rains,” Afghanistan’s disaster management authority (ANDMA) spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Hammad told AFP yesterday.

The spokesman added that 26 people were killed and 48 were wounded across the country in the past 48 hours due to rains, floods, landslides and lightning.

Across the border in Pakistan, 44 people were killed following heavy rains in the last weeks, officials said.

At least 32 people died in the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since March 25 and 12 in southwestern Balochistan since March 20, the provincial disaster management authorities told AFP.

Afghanistan’s latest casualties include a child who drowned in a flash flood in southeastern Ghazni on Saturday morning while he was busy playing with other children, provincial police said.

Two more children also drowned in different districts of the same province.

That came hours after three people died in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, when the roof of their house collapsed due to rains, the provincial disaster management authority said.

The latest casualties follow more than 60 people being killed in snow and heavy rain that hit Afghanistan in January.

Afghanistan frequently experiences deadly floods, landslides and storms, particularly in remote areas with fragile infrastructure.