KABUL, April 20: At least 30 people have been killed after powerful floods washed away their houses in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a local official said on Sunday.

On Friday in Baghraan district “due to heavy floods five houses in the Sha Gho valley were destroyed completely,” Haji Mohammad Wali, the spokesman for Helmand governor Mullah Shir Mohammad, told AFP by telephone from the provincial capital Lashkargah.

“Thirty people were killed, they’ve found five bodies but they couldn’t find the bodies of the other 25,” who were washed away. Days of heavy rain had triggered the deadly floods which also destroyed farmland in the Baghraan area 400 kilometres southwest of Kabul.

“District elders say they haven’t seen such bad floods in 25-30 years,” he said.

Meanwhile three children were missing and 200 families had to be evacuated by helicopter after flood waters swept through their homes on the Shomali plain just north of Kabul, a UN spokesman said.—AFP