REPORT: More than 2,100 confirmed dead in Afghan landslide

Afghan officials gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors from a landslide in the remote northeast, putting the death toll at more than 2,100, as rescuers turned their attention to helping the over 4,000 people displaced.
  
Officials expressed concern the unstable hillside above the site of the disaster may cave in again, threatening the homeless as well as the U.N. and local rescue teams that have arrived in Badakhshan province, which borders Tajikistan.
  
"More than 2,100 people from 300 families are all dead," Naweed Forotan, a spokesman for the Badakhshan provincial governor, told Reuters.
  
Villagers and a few dozen police, equipped with only basic digging tools, resumed their search when daylight broke but it soon became clear there was no hope of finding survivors buried in up to 100 metres of mud.
  
"Seven members of my family were here, four or five of them were killed ... I am also half alive, what can I do?" said an elderly woman, her hair covered in a pink shawl.
  
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said the focus was now on the more than 4,000 people displaced, either directly as a result of Friday's landslide or as a precautionary measure from villages assessed to be at risk.
  
Their main needs are water, medicine, food and emergency shelter, said Ari Gaitanis, a spokesman from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
  
The impoverished area, dotted with villages of mud-brick homes nestled in valleys beside bare slopes, has been hit by several landslides in recent years.


REUTERS


To watch Dima Sadek's report, please click on the VIDEO above