Flooding in Afghanistan Reaches Unprecedented Levels of Destruction
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs(OCHA) reports the most recent wave of monstrous floods killed and injured 540 Afghans in addition to destroying 9,000 homes, 3 mosques, and 4 schools across Baghlan, Badakhshan, Faryab, Ghor, Herat, Mazar, and Takhar provinces. Afghans describe unprecedented levels of loss, destruction, and trauma – people trapped in deadly currents, children seeing their family members drown, families still searching for the bodies of their loved ones in knee-deep mud before it hardens while some find bodies miles away. BBC reports that most families lost at least 2 to 3 relatives and depicts the devastation of a man who lost 16 family members. The flooding disaster also wiped out cattle and reduced fields of cotton and wheat crops to mud. The majority of Afghans depend on agriculture for income and BBC’s interviews account for Afghans' only source of income now destroyed. NPR also states that entire villages washed away from the floods, one village entirely wiped out in two hours. Afghans express that the threat to their life and livelihood in addition to the demolition of their homes and subsequent displacement on such a massive scale compounded the severity in recent floods’ damage like never before, future floods only expected to worsen according to BBC.
These devastating losses leave Afghans in great need of external support. The idea and possibility of rebuilding infrastructure plummets to the lowest priority as immediate concerns such as locating the bodies of flood victims, emergency shelter, food assistance, access to clean water, medical support, and debris cleaning have not yet been fulfilled. OCHA states that many locations affected by the floods remain inaccessible to humanitarian organizations. On the other hand, the Taliban regime fails to provide onsite support and civilians must fend for themselves. Inadequate support forces Afghan people to use their bare hands and shovels to dig mass graves in very dry grounds for the men, women, and children victim to this catastrophe, women and children comprising the majority of the death toll. Afghan organizations on the ground withhold the most influence at this time with the ability to hire local Afghans to clear flood regions of rubble, debris, and ruin, find where to relocate the abundance of mud, dig mass graves for families, and execute emergency missions to rescue people still stuck in the ground.
The recent flooding events depict how climate change and low levels of socioeconomic development leave Afghanistan extremely vulnerable to ongoing floods reaching unprecedented levels of destruction. A 2017 study by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery(GFDRR) profiled annual damages ranging from $54 million to $500 million amidst the worst floods and 100,000 Afghans affected, the number en route to double by 2050. Already, in 2024, the effects of climate change and insufficient infrastructure plague the country. VOAreveals the climate crisis directly causes unusually high levels of rainfall that Afghanistan’s drier and drier ground prevents absorption due to the country’s long droughts and dry winters, ultimately resulting in continuous flash floods. GFDRR also reports Afghanistan’s poorly built flood protection infrastructure such as its inadequate drainage system exacerbates detrimental effects of flooding on Afghan society.
Afghans perpetually and persistently face adversity, historically subjected to external powers’ war-induced destruction of Afghanistan’s land and people for decades. In recent years, the United States’ irresponsible withdrawal and the Taliban takeover intensified economic ruin, poverty, food insecurity, water scarcity, inaccessibility to education, and violence towards ethnic and religious minorities across Afghanistan. After enduring earthquakes and drought, Afghans must now suffer through the debilitating nightmare of catastrophic floods. Kalaam Project provides an avenue of direct support for the victims of the recent floods. Through Kalaam’s Flood Initiative, those interested in supporting Afghans in dire need may provide aid for 12 farmers supporting over 108 family members, all of which fell victim to the flood’s displacement and depletion of income due to agricultural loss amidst rampant food insecurity across the country.
Learn more about the Kalaam Project’s work in Afghanistan and make a contribution here.
