Afghan villagers gather at the site of a landslide at the Argo district in Badakhshan province, May 4, 2014.
Afghan Officials Abandon Search for Landslide Survivors
Officials in northern Afghanistan have given up hope of finding any more survivors of a massive landslide that buried hundreds of villagers under tons of rock and mud, and have called off the search.
Rescuers also voiced fears of further landslides after days of torrential rains in the area bordering Tajikistan, China and Pakistan.
On Saturday, authorities in the remote Badakhshan province village of Aab Bareek recovered only two bodies.
Rescuers on Sunday turned their focus to providing shelter, food and medical aid to around 4,000 people displaced by Friday's disaster.
Estimates of the dead and missing have varied widely, from a few hundred to more than 2,700. The final figure may never be known, because the scene has been declared a mass grave and many people are missing.
U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have offered formal condolences and promises of help.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.
