The bodies of three persons who drowned after a boat capsized in the Panj River near the Shirgovad district in the Darvoz district of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO Sunday afternoon have been recovered and handed over to the relatives.
According to GBAO the emergency management agency, three bodies have been identified as those of an officer of the Interior Ministry’s office in GBAO’s Rushan district Anvar Yodaliyev, an employee of the Ministry of Defense Naim Sadulloyev and the 10-year-old girl from the village of Dasht in the Darvoz district.
Recall, three people of a group of seven drowned after the inflatable boat capsized in the Panj River Sunday afternoon.
The boat reportedly belonged to FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance and it was used to carry people and mitigate effects of July 8 mudflows that blocked the river, forming a lake.
The passengers who were successfully rescued have been identified as local residents Dorob Langarov, Mutribsho Tolibshoyev, Rahimjon Javhariyev and Khudodo Vahhobov.
The mudflows that occurred on the Afghan bank of the Panj River on July 8 damaged dozens of houses on both sides of the Tajik-Afghan border and blocked the section of the Dushanbe-Khorog highway between the villages of Shirgovad and Yoged.
The mudflows carrying the mass of slurry with them reportedly blocked the river, forming a lake. The river burst the banks, flooding the Khostav village in GBAO’s Darvoz district.
Twenty-two houses were reportedly damaged by the flooding. No injured was reported. The flooding victims were temporarily housed in tents.
According to Russia’s Central Military District, Russian servicemen on July 13 used more than 100 kilograms of TNT to destroy the mass slurry that blocked the river.
Colonel Yaroslav Roshchupkin, an aide to the commander of Russia's Central Military District, says the Central Military District command has received an appropriate appeal from Tajikistan’s authorities.
The mudflows left several people dead in Afghan Darvaz, according to the press center of Russia’s Military Central District.
Meanwhile, the highway connecting Dushanbe and the GBAO administrative center, Khorog, through Kulob is still closed for traffic, but people can use the highway connecting Dushanbe and Khorog through the Sangvor (formerly Tavildara) district and the Khoburabot Pass. The work on repairing the Dushanbe-Kulob-Darvoz-Khorog highway is under way
The issue of resettlement of disaster-affected families to safer places is still under consideration, according to the GBAO administration.
