Officials said today that at least 30 people died in the central Afghan province of Daikundi and seven in Herat on Saturday (March 31). Another 11 died elsewhere in the country.

Haji Waheed, a Kabul resident, said flooding started overnight and that many houses were destroyed. "The flooding started overnight. When we woke up in the morning we saw it was getting worse and worse and as you can see, thousands of houses have been destroyed by the floods."

An Afghan interior ministry spokesman said that 600 people urgently need to be evacuated by air and are exposed to danger from rising waters in Uruzgan province in the south.

The floods have also washed away part of a highway and a key bridge north of Kabul, cutting off links between the north and south of the country.

In neighbouring Pakistan, an avalanche killed at least 29 people on Saturday night in the Hindu Kush mountains of the Chitral region.