Over 50 killed in Afghanistan landslide

More than 50 people were killed and several went missing following a landslide in northern Afghanistan's Badakhshan province on Tuesday, an official said.

The disaster struck in Jarhaba village of Khwahan district in the morning. A rescue and search operation was underway, Xinhua reported quoting Sayyed Abdullah Homayyon Dehqan, provincial director of disaster management department.

"Our estimates show that nearly 100 houses were buried under the mud and rubble...It is very difficult to give a precise number of deaths and missing now," Dehqan said.

Meantime, the district governor told local media that over 50 villagers were killed in the incident.

In May last year, more than 2,000 people were killed or wounded in a landslide in the mountainous province with Faizabad as its capital, 315 km northeast of the Afghan capital of Kabul.