More than 2,100 confirmed dead in Afghan landslide

Afghan officials gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors from a landslide in the remote northeast, with the number killed or missing put at between a few hundred and as many as 2,700. The United Nations said the focus now was on helping more than 4,000 displaced people. International organisations and Afghan officials said at least 300 mud brick homes were buried on Friday, but precise information on the number killed was hard to come by in the impoverished province bordering Tajikistan. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said more than 350 people were killed, but a spokesman for the local governor put the number in excess of 2,100. The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 2,700 were dead or missing. "The scale of this landslide is absolutely devastating, with an entire village practically wiped away," IOM Afghanistan Chief of Mission Richard Danziger said. "Hundreds of families have lost everything and are in immense need of assistance."

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/05/02/more-than-2000-trapped-under-afghan-landslide