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Extreme weather leaves 22 dead over past 24 hours in Afghanistan, including 13 from collapsing roofs

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan authorities said Tuesday that extreme weather has left 22 people dead and 32 injured over the last 24 hours, including more than a dozen who were killed when torrential rainfall caused the roofs of houses to collapse overnight in eastern Afghanistan.

Storms and heavy rainfall that have caused landslides, flooding and lightning strikes across the country over the past two weeks have left more than 130 people dead and destroyed or damaged thousands of homes, authorities have said.

The latest casualty figures from the Afghanistan National Disaster Authority come on top of dozens of deaths caused by heavy snowfall and floods earlier this year in Afghanistan, an impoverished country that is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events. The authority said the figures could increase further.

Large parts of the eastern city of Jalalabad were flooded overnight into Tuesday, with roof collapses killing 13 people and injuring another 19 in the city and surrounding districts, said Siddiqullah Quraishi, information director in the Information and Culture Directorate for the province of Nangarhar of which Jalalabad is the main city.

Quraishi said 104 people had to be airlifted to safety by helicopter in various parts of the province after they became stranded by floodwaters.

Hundreds of kilometers (miles) of roads in various parts of the country have been destroyed by floods, landslides and rockfalls over the past two weeks, while major highways linking the capital Kabul with provinces in the north, east and west were closed.

Snow and heavy rain often trigger flash floods that kill scores, or even hundreds, of people at a time in Afghanistan. In 2024, more than 300 people died in springtime flash floods.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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