BBC Online :
More than 250 people are feared dead and more than 2,500 people are missing in north-east Afghanistan after a landslide buried their houses, the governor of Badakhshan province says.
Hundreds of homes were buried under mud and rocks when a section of a mountain caved in following torrential rain. Rescuers have reached the area and are searching for survivors. The BBC’s David Loyn in Kabul says that much of north and east Afghanistan has been hit by heavy rain in recent days.
Around 150 people died in flooding last week.
But our correspondent says this disaster appears to be on a far bigger scale. About 1,000 houses were affected – 300 of them buried immediately after the side of a mountain slipped downwards. As it was Friday morning, a day off in Afghanistan, people were at home when the landslide happened and whole families were lost under tons of mud.
