KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Heavy rainfall and flash floods have affected more than 73,000 people in 34 provinces of Afghanistan, leaving about 57,000 in need of humanitarian assistance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest update.
In its report, released Thursday, OCHA stated that the floods, triggered by intense rainfall and snowfall between mid-March and late April 2026, have caused widespread destruction, particularly in eastern and southern regions.
According to the report, several hundred people have been killed or injured overall. Around 1,500 homes were destroyed and 6,000 others damaged, while critical infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and agricultural land, has also been hit.
Of the 57,000 people confirmed to require urgent help, more than 31,100 have so far received multi-sectoral assistance, including food, cash aid, emergency shelter, non-food items, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, health and nutrition support, as well as protection services, OCHA said.
According to the report, Inter-agency assessments have been completed in 115 districts, with evaluations ongoing in another 34 districts. OCHA warned that the full scale of the impact could rise as additional data becomes available.
Many affected families have lost their homes and livelihoods, with some still living in temporary shelters. The hardest-hit areas include the eastern provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Khost, Paktia and Paktika. Further displacement has occurred in central provinces where access to basic services is already limited.
The floods damaged 61 health centres across five provinces — Kandahar, Zabul, Badghis, Logar and Nangarhar — although all facilities continue to operate. In addition, 68 schools in Nangarhar and 55 schools in southern Afghanistan sustained damage, with reports of further harm to educational facilities in northern and southern provinces.
According to the report, damaged roads, bridges and other infrastructure have hampered service delivery and restricted humanitarian access in multiple provinces, particularly in Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost, Nuristan, Paktika, and Paktia.
The agency said the response is increasingly constrained by overlapping crises, including disruptions to supply chains, particularly for food and nutrition, prolonged closure of the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, population displacement linked to Taliban-Pakistan clashes, and continued influxes of returnees and migrants.
Despite the challenges, humanitarian agencies are adapting operations through mobile teams and community-based delivery mechanisms to ensure continued life-saving assistance reaches those in need, OCHA added.
Afghanistan is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, highly vulnerable to floods, droughts and earthquakes because of its fragile infrastructure, environmental degradation and limited response capacity, especially in remote mountainous areas.
The latest flooding has further strained the country’s already severe humanitarian situation. According to UN estimates, nearly 22 million people across Afghanistan require humanitarian assistance, while more than 17 million people — the majority of them women and children — are facing acute food insecurity.
