By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, March 20 (Reuters) - Floods
caused by torrential rains and melting snow have killed more than 200 people
and destroyed thousands of homes in several parts of Afghanistan over recent
days, officials said on Sunday.
After the worst winter for a decade, there were always fears that the spring thaw would result in flooding from rivers running down from Afghanistan's mountain ranges.
Several hundred people were killed by the severe winter weather and the unlucky country had earlier suffered almost six years of drought.
The area worst hit by flooding was Deh Rawud district in the rugged central Uruzgan province, where the Helmand River burst its banks, destroying villagers' mud walled homes, inundated farmland and swept away cattle, sheep and goats.
"The deaths of 115 people have been confirmed... while thousands of homes have been destroyed,"," Uruzgan's governor Jan Mohammad Khan said, adding that many more people were missing.
U.S. military Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters rescued around 250 people in the Deh Rawud District, some 70 kilometres (43 miles) northeast of the U.S. base at Kandahar, after the Helmand river burst its banks.
As rain continued to pour in Uruzgan, U.N. spokeswoman Ariane Quentier said some five tonnes of food supplies from the World Food Programme were airlifted to the stricken areas along with tents and plastic sheeting, and another five tonnes of food supplies were on the way.
The U.S. military also sent blankets, wheat flour, cooking oil and biscuits, and a spokesman said U.S. forces were on standby, awaiting any further request for assistance from Afghan and U.N. authorities managing the relief effort. The western provinces of Farah and Herat were also hard hit.
In Farah, Governor Assadullah Falah said 68 people died as a result flooding, while officials reported 40 more deaths in Faryab and Ghor provinces.
"We have reports of total destruction of 7,800 houses in Farah," Falah said, adding that large numbers of livestock had been killed.
Some 2,500 houses had collapsed in Herat province. Most houses in Afghanistan are built from mud and are highly vulnerable to flooding.
Local officials also reported an outbreak of dysentery and diarrhoea in Herat's mountainous and inaccessible Pashtun Zarghoon area.