DUSHANBE, May 7, 2014, Asia-Plus – Tajik aid convoy has delivered 200 tons of humanitarian aid to disaster-affected people in Afghanistan Badakhshan province.

Deputy head of the Committee on Emergency Situations and Civil Defense (CES), Major-General Orif Nozimov, told Asia-Plus by phone that the convoy arrived in Afghan Badakhshan yesterday morning.

On the same day, Orif Nozimov met with Badakhshan Governor Shah Waliullah Adeeb.  He conveyed to Afghan official condolences of the government and the people of Tajikistan to the people of Afghanistan over the deadly landslides.

According to the CES press center, CES representatives visited the disaster side and talked to the landslide-affected people.

Tajik aid convoy reportedly delivered wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil, macaroni, rice, drinking water, kitchen utensils and other supplies to the disaster-affected people.

Meanwhile, some international media sources reported yesterday that search operations for the bodies of villagers who were buried under a massive mudslide in Ab Barik village in Afghan Badakhshan have been restarted after relatives of the missing complained about the government’s decision to halt the operation.

The collapse of a mountainside after heavy rains destroyed the village of Ab Barik on May 2, with many victims thought to be buried beneath as much as 50 meters of mud that cascaded down into a ravine.

The search was called off during the weekend because the ravine is inaccessible to heavy digging equipment.

Radio Liberty reports that the number of dead may never be known though UN and Afghan officials have estimated fatalities at anywhere between 500 and 2,700 people.

About 700 families have been displaced by the disaster and are living in the open around the ruined village.