Afghanistan: Survivors’ Hopes Fade in Aftermath of Afghan Landslide

May 4, 2014 | Azam Ahmad and Habib Zahori, The New York Times
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ABI BARAK, Afghanistan — With hope gone that the 2,100 people thought to be buried by a mountain of mud here could be rescued, most efforts in this remote corner of northern Afghanistan have turned toward keeping the rest alive.Survivors gathered away from the mass grave that was once a third of their village on Sunday, jostling for aid in an open-air market of sorts. Thousands congregated around neatly stacked boxes of blankets, mats, oil and flour as elders shouted from makeshift platforms, orchestrating the delivery of the badly needed goods.But Burhanuddin had no time for that. Along the base of this picturesque valley, where a massive chunk of earth cleaved from a neighboring mountain cascaded onto his and nearly 300 other homes on Friday, he was digging.