Badakshan province Governor Shah Waliullah Adeeb said
more than 2,000 people were missing after a hill collapsed on the village of
Hobo Barik. Adeeb said the landslide buried some 300 homes in the area.
The governor said rescue crews were working but didn’t
have enough equipment, appealing for shovels. “It’s physically impossible right
now,” Adeeb said. “We don’t have enough shovels; we need more machinery.” He
said authorities evacuated a nearby village over concerns about further
landslides.
Badakshan province nestled in the Hindu Kush and Pamir
mountain ranges and bordering China, is one of the most remote in the country.
The area has seen few attacks from insurgents following the 2001 U.S.-led
invasion of Afghanistan.
Afghans living in the rugged mountains of northern
Afghanistan are used to avalanches. The most deadly one in the past two years
occurred in February 2010, when more than 170 people were killed at the
12,700-foot (3,800m) high Salang Pass, which is the major route through the
Hindu Kush mountains that connects the capital to the north.
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