Afghanistan is considered as a country prone to a number of natural disasters suchlike earthquakes, flooding, drought, landslides, and avalanches & man-made disasters: Earthquakes are relatively frequent, being more frequent in the north and northeast, and often trigger landslides. Floods are common in the spring when snow begins to melt and rainfall is heavy & in south and southeast often trigger drought floods.
As Afghanistan is located in a zone of high-seismic activity. Given the rugged and mountainous nature of the country and the location of villages, towns and cities, there is always a high propensity for widespread death and destruction whenever an earthquake, landslide, mudslide, avalanche, or flooding occurs.
Since 2000, there have been about 9 major earthquakes occurred, and from recently disasters that occurred, It is estimated that at least 6,000 families (over 42,000 individuals) across 21 provinces have been affected by avalanches, flooding, landslides and heavy snowfall since February 2014.
Decades of War and civil conflict, as well as environmental degradation, have all contributed to increasing vulnerability of the Afghan people to natural disasters. Several assessments by the humanitarian agencies have revealed significant shortcomings in the areas of water, sanitation, health, security and natural resource management. Furthermore, the high level of poverty, lack of livelihood and income generating opportunities, chronic health problems, and poor state of the infrastructure all add to the burden of natural disasters on the people of Afghanistan.
Though it is not possible to completely avoid natural disasters, but the sufferings can be minimized by creating proper awareness of the likely disasters and its impact by developing a suitable warning system, disaster preparedness and management of disasters through application of information technology tools.
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