KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Flooding in northwestern Afghanistan has killed at least 30 people and left more than 5,000 homeless, a local official said Monday.
Two rivers in the remote province of Faryab burst their banks last week and flooded 50,000 acres of farmland, said Mohammed Jawed, spokesman for the opposition alliance that controls the area.
Jawed also said 9,000 animals have died and 2,000 houses destroyed, and warned that casualty figures were expected to rise.
The report could not be independently confirmed.
Taliban officials say Iran closed the dam gates to the swollen Helmand River on its side of the border, causing flooding in at least 60 villages on the Afghan side. U.N. officials in the area have confirmed the flooding.
The Taliban also said that the capital of Afghanistan’s Nimroz province, home to about