Officials say hundreds of people are missing after a landside occurred in a village in the northeastern mountain region of Afghanistan.
The Friday incident in the Argo district village of Hobo Barik was brought on by days of heavy rainfall, which then caused a hill to collapse onto the village, the Associated Press reported. The landslide buried nearly 300 homes and left 2,000 people unaccounted for, Badakhshan province Governor Shah Waliullah Adeeb told the AP.
"There were more than 1,000 families living in that village," Nawed Forotan, the governor's spokesman, told Reuters. "A total of 2,100 people- men women and children- are trapped."
A smaller landslide occurred just hours before the hill collapsed at around 11 a.m. Residents were in the process of gathering their belongings and livestock when the bigger landslide occurred, Reuters reported.
A nearby village has been evacuated out of fear of another landslide.
Rescue efforts have been delayed due to a lack of proper equipment, Adeeb told the AP.
"It's physically impossible right now," the governor told the AP. "We don't have enough shovels; we need more machinery."
Though search efforts continue, officials are not hopeful of finding many survivors.
"As the part of the mountain which collapsed is so big, we don't believe anyone would survive," Forotan told Reuters. "The government and locals from surrounding villages are helping with the rescue, and so far they have recovered more than a hundred bodies."
The death toll is currently at 350, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Reuters reported. Seasonal rainfall in other parts of northern Afghanistan has already caused severe flooding and the deaths of 100 people.
Residents in the remote mountainous region experience regular avalanches. Over 170 people were killed in a 2010 avalanche on the Salang Pass, which is 12,700 feet high, the AP reported.
