KHOST, Afghanistan - Afghan and US officials are warning of a potential new disaster with floodwaters expected to hit three southeastern provinces as snows melt after the worst winter in a decade.
Rising waters, swelled by daily rain, have already burst the banks of some rivers, washing away roads and houses.
"Several deaths have already been reported," the US military said in a statement.
The floods could be devastating in the provinces of Paktia, Paktika and Khost, Paktia governor Ustad Hakeem Taniwal told AFP.
"It could be a human tragedy," he said, urging relief agencies and the Afghan government to mobilise to head off the problem.
The US military, which operates a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) carrying out development work in the region, and western aid workers there echoed Taniwal's concerns.
Major James Hawver, the deputy commander of the PRT said the US military was placing aid supplies like blankets, tarpaulins and food items throughout the area and considering air drops to hard-hit villages.
"We're going to be limited as to what we can do at this point," Hawver said in the statement.
The roads in the area are already in poor condition, and the floods threaten to cut residents off from medical care and the outside world.
"This could cause more fatalities and disrupt local trade and commerce," the statement said.
The new warning comes after at least 580 people, many of them children, died in Afghanistan's harsh winter, although more were feared dead in remote districts cut off by snowfalls.
Like many areas of Afghanistan, the mountainous south-east has not experienced this much snow or rainfall in the last seven years of drought, and in Paktika province at least six districts remain cut off by heavy snowfalls, a western aid worker based in the region told AFP.
The situation was becoming increasingly serious and roads which would be used to deliver food and medicines were a "sea of mud", he said.
"People are not dying in droves but the government has passed information about their needs and there has been no visible response in terms of food assistance in the field," he added, declining to be identified.
Two decades of deforestation had left the region with few natural defences against rising waters.
"The area here in Khost, eastern Paktika and Paktia is mountainous and has suffered from deforestation so it's very prone to flash floods and mudslides and flooding on flat terrain could wash off top soil and affect agriculture," the aid worker said.
Local leaders, international relief agencies and soldiers from the Gardez Provincial Reconstruction Team were already working together to create a flood response plan for the area, the US military said.
03/06/2005 09:04 GMT