350 dead, thousands missing in Afghan landslide

Rescuers searched for survivors today after a landslide buried an Afghan village, killing 350 people and leaving thousands of others feared dead amid warnings that more earth could sweep down the hillside.
Local people tried to dig out victims trapped under a massive river of mud that engulfed Aab Bareek village in Badakhshan province where little sign remained of hundreds of destroyed homes.
The United Nations confirmed that 350 people were dead, and provincial officials said more than 2,000 could be still missing 24 hours after the disaster.
Emergency workers arrived this morning to be confronted by the enormous scale of the landslide and hundreds of homeless families.

"There is a very thick layer of mud. It is very difficult for people to take dead bodies out," Sayed Abdullah Homayun Dehqan, provincial director of the Afghan National Disaster Management Authority, told AFP from the scene.
"There is fear of another landslide. Our assessment team have seen a crack in a nearby hill.

"They have only been able to find the body of a woman and a man.
"We have started distributing food... But we don't have enough tents for all the 700 families who spent the night outside. There are around 2,000 people -- women, children, elders -- without homes."

Dehqan cautioned that the death toll remained uncertain, after Badakhshan governor Shah Waliullah Adeeb said that 2,500 people could have been killed.
The site is expected to be designated a mass grave and memorial services have been planned for later today.
Villagers were at Friday prayers in two mosques when they were entombed by a tide of debris, and a second landslide hit many who had rushed to assist those in need.
"All the relevant UN agencies - together with the Afghan Red Crescent Society and NGO partners - are already on the ground," the UN mission in Afghanistan said.

"The immediate focus is on approximately 700 families displaced either directly as a result of this slide or as a precautionary measure from villages assessed to be at further risk.
"Key needs for them are water, medical support, counseling support, food and emergency shelter."
President Hamid Karzai expressed his condolences to those affected and said immediate action was being taken to find survivors.