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Feature: Terrified survivors hopelessly looking for dears in landslide-hit Afghan village

By Abdul Haleem (Xinhua)    10:42, May 05, 2014
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ARGO, Afghanistan, May 4 -- Scores of villagers who survived the deadly landslide in the mountainous Badakhshan province are wandering at the site of the natural disaster to locate their nears and dears who were buried alive when thousands of tons of mud and earth struck Aab Bareek village on Friday.

"I am searching to locate and discover my wife along with four children who are missing since Friday noon," Pir Qul, 50, told Xinhua at the site of the natural disaster on Saturday.

"Although I am sure that they have already lost their lives under thousands of tons of mud, my inner sense ask me to continue searching if fortune sides me to find them alive," the dejected Qul whispered, while walking on the mud hill.

Following days of heavy rains, a landslide occurred in the mountainous Aab Bareek village of Argo district on Friday, turning 300 houses into a mass grave.

Although there are no official statistics about the exact number of victims, Badakhshan's provincial governor Shah Waliullah Adeeb told Xinhua on Sunday that more than 2,500 people might have lost their lives in the deadly landslide.

The landslide has turned the Aab Bareek area into a doomsday- like scene as the survivors of the natural wrath and rescuers as well as onlookers are seen straying with slim hope to find a villager alive.

"All my family members were buried alive, it is a doomsday for me, my five children and my wife along with my elderly mother were buried alive, I am sure they will not returned home forever and I would meet them in the world hereafter," another villager, 40-year- old Peroz, told Xinhua.

The depressed Peroz, who survived the disaster by chance, said, "I am the most unlucky person, I don't want to live, rather I want to join the rest of my family members."

Rescue operations have been continuing for the past three days, but so far only three bodies, including a man, a woman and a child, have been recovered, according to officials.

Governor Adeeb said the thickness of mud is more than 50 meters and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to excavate and recover the human bodies from under the thick debris.

As the chance of the recovering villagers alive is fading, the Badakhshan governor, Adeeb has also suggested offering funeral prayer in the absence of death bodies.

To pay homage to the victims of the landslide in Aab Bareek village, the government of Afghanistan announced Sunday as national mourning day, asking government bodies and Afghan diplomatic missions abroad to keep the national flag half hoisted.

Meanwhile, 30-year-old Kibra, who lost a child and her mother- in-law in the disaster, said she has not received any essential aid except a few bottles of water and some bread. She prefers to join the "remaining of her family members" instead of living in misery and solitary, she said.

(Editor:DuMingming、Huang Jin)

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