FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, April 28 (UPI) -- A landslide killed at least 52 people when it buried a village in northeastern Afghanistan last week, according to reports that emerged Tuesday.

The incident occurred Thursday in the village of Jurm Ulya, in the Khawahan district of Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, near the Tajikistan border.


Onrushing mud buried each of the village's 97 houses, killing 25 women, 22 children and five men, deputy provincial governor Gul Mohammad Beidar told the BBC.

"We do not have any equipment to rescue any possible survivors buried under a huge mountain of mud," District Governor Ghufran Zaki told NBC News, adding that several villagers had previously noted cracks in the upper part of the valley following heavy rains, prompting many to leave.

"The death toll would have been much higher if the villagers had not left," Zaki said.

Beidar told the BBC the area was difficult to access by road due to heavy snows but said the Kabul government was sending emergency teams by helicopter.

A landslide in the same area killed at least 350 people last May after torrential rains brought down a section of mountain that buried an entire village.

Melting snow in the spring typically causes landslides in lightly populated Badakhshan province, but the growing rate of the disaster has also been blamed on deforestation.