Flash floods caused by heavy unseasonal rains have killed at least 13 people with another 19 feared dead in eastern and southeastern provinces of Afghanistan, officials said Monday.
Thirteen bodies were recovered after floods Sunday caused by torrential rains in eastern Nangarhar province on the border with Pakistan, the provincial administration director told AFP.
Five people had been injured and seven were still missing, Ghulam Sayed Khogiani said.
The rain also washed away around 60 hectares (148 acres) of agricultural land, destroyed several houses and killed scores of animals, he said.
Heavy rains Sunday had also damaged villages in adjoining Paktia and nearby Khost provinces and authorities on Monday despatched teams to investigate reports that many people were dead.
"We have reports that seven people have died. We've sent our teams to the areas to collect more information," Khost director of rural development Mohammad Omar told AFP.
Omar said the US-led coalition operating in Afghanistan had deployed military helicopters that helped dozens of stranded people from flood-hit areas, many of them on the Pakistan border.
In Paktia villagers had reported five people, including children, were dead, the provincial rural development director Mohammad Tahir said.
The south of Afghanistan is meanwhile in the grips of a severe drought that has already sent hundreds of villagers into larger towns for their survival.
And a mild earthquake in the northern province of Kunduz on Saturday killed two people and injured 14, the president's office said in a statement announcing that aid groups had been instructed to help those affected.
Fifty homes were destroyed and nearly 400 damaged in the quake in the Imam Sahib border district.
