Friday November 17, 8:54 PM
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Nearly 50 people killed in Afghanistan floods*

Flash floods caused by heavy rains have killed nearly 50 people in
western Afghanistan with 60 more missing.

Forty-seven bodies had been recovered after floods hit the western
province of Badghis on Thursday, health ministry official Ahmad Shah
Shokohmand told AFP, citing information forwarded by provincial health
authorities.

The bodies were being kept in a mosque in Balamurghab, a town about 30
kilometres (19 miles) from the border with Turkmenistan, Shokohmand said
Friday.

The governor of Badghis, Mohammad Nasim Tokhi, had said earlier that at
least 13 people, including children, had drowned while nearly 100 more
were missing.

The floods washed away villages along the Murghab River, he said,
warning that thousands of people were still in danger.

"It was a huge flood. We have 13 bodies recovered and dozens, nearly
100, are missing," he told AFP, citing information about the missing
from their families.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said it was aware
of the "serious situation" and was working with the government to send
disaster relief, including eight tonnes of medical supplies, to the area.

Afghanistan, especially the west and south, has been in the grip of
drought but heavy rains started falling in several areas in the past week.

Badghis has been especially hard-hit by a lack of rain with reports that
hundreds of families had left their land.

The British-based charity Christian Aid said in September that it had
found that most water sources in Badghis and adjoining Herat and Ghor
provinces had dried up.

In the south of the country meanwhile the bodies of two Afghans who
drowned in the province of Zabul on Thursday were recovered Friday,
provincial police said.

"Their vehicle was hit by a flood while passing a flood plain. Two of
the four passengers in the vehicle were killed," police Noor Mohammad
Pakteen told AFP.

He said the four were with a foreign-based security organisation but
this could not be confirmed.

The UN World Food Programme meanwhile renewed calls Friday for urgent
funds to buy food for millions of Afghans facing shortages this winter,
some of whom had been affected by drought.

"Our stocks are empty," a spokesman for the United Nations programme,
Ebadullah Ebadi, told AFP.

The world body needed 30 million dollars for its winter food delivery to
3.5 million Afghans who relied on its help, he said.

Another three million who were not covered by the WFP were also
"severely and chronically affected" by food shortages, Ebadi said.

"In addition to this, 1.9 (million people) have been affected by
drought," he said.