…While China shoots missiles into South China Sea in warning to U.S.***
Flash floods have killed more than 100 people in northern Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday, with the death toll expected to climb as an operation to recover more bodies was underway.
The disaster in Parwan province has wounded more than 250 people, destroyed more than 500 houses and washed away streets in the provincial capital Charikar.
The Afghan National Management Authority and the Defence Ministry have helped 5,000 families with food and non-food aid packages, a spokesman for the agency, Hasibullah Shaikhani, said.
A provincial council member, Mohammad Khalil Fazli, said the speed of the floods caught everyone off guard.
“When people tried to get out of their homes, to escape for their lives, they faced heavy floods that were already filled the streets and roads,” he said.
Another councillor, Aminullah Shakori, said that the high waters rushed into the city from several different locations, destroying everything in its path.
Acting Defence Minister Asadullah Khalid arrived in the province in a bid to help coordinate the rescue operation.
Parwan province is one of the most flood-prone provinces in Afghanistan.
In another development, China on Wednesday reportedly shot two medium-range missiles into the South China Sea in an apparent warning to the United States after a spy plane entered its no-fly zone during military drills.
The rockets were fired from Qinghai and Zhejiang provinces and landed in an area of the sea closed for manoeuvrers this week, a source close to the Chinese military told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper.
One of the rockets, a DF-26B, has a range of 4,000 km and can also be equipped with nuclear warheads, the paper said, and called the move an “a clear warning to the United States.”
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The other, a DF-21D advanced anti-ship missile, has a range of 1,800 km. The rockets landed in an area south-east of the Chinese island of Hainan and the disputed Paracel or Xisha Islands, the paper said.
The unusual demonstration of military strength came hours after China said that a US spy plane had entered into a no-fly zone imposed during military drills in the country’s north.
An Air Force U-2 plane entered the no-fly zone for live-fire military exercises “without authorization” and “seriously interfered” with the People’s Liberation Army’s activities, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
“This is a stark provocation,” spokesman Zhao Lijian said, adding that China had lodged a “solemn” protest with the U.S. about the issue.
Zhao didn’t specify the time and place of the incident. However, the Chinese army is scheduled to conduct drills over the Bohai Sea starting this week until September 30.
The US Pacific Air Forces told CNN a U-2 spy plane flew in the Indo-Pacific area but did not violate any international rules.
Relations between China and the US have sunk to the lowest point in decades as the two countries spar over issues such as China’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, trade and Beijing’s policies in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Another point of contention is China’s militarization of disputed islands in the South China Sea, where territories are claimed by five other nations. The US occasionally operates “freedom of navigation” manoeuvres in the South China
