Families buried, livelihoods lost as Afghan storm toll hits 47

Charbagh Safa, Afghanistan   -  The death toll from heavy rains in eastern Afghanistan climbed to 47 on Tuesday, as victims recounted how the tempest demolished entire homes and buried families alive. Some 350 people were injured and 400 houses razed as rain and hail lashed eastern Nangarhar on Monday evening, according to the provincial disaster management authority. Charbagh Safa -- a village outside the provincial capital Jalalabad -- was in ruin by daybreak on Tuesday, a landscape of sucking mud where more than half the houses were gone. The home of Sajidullah had been packed with relatives eager to meet his brother’s newborn baby when the deluge collapsed the building -- killing the new father alongside ten others. “When the storm came here, the wall fell over them,” he told AFP. “I was in the shop when I received the call and I ran here.” “The stream here was flooding so our way was cut off and our injured didn’t reach the hospital on time and got martyred.”

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