(Adds avalanche in Pakistan, updates toll) KABUL, April 1 (Reuters) - Floods have killed nearly 50 people in Afghanistan, destroyed houses and rendered several hundred homeless, officials said on Sunday. In neighbouring Pakistan, an avalanche killed at least 23 people on Saturday night and rescuers were struggling to find 15 missing in a remote village of Turkoh in the Hindu Kush mountains of Chitral region. The floods in Afghanistan also destroyed thousands of hectares of land and washed away or damaged bridges in several parts of the country including the capital, Kabul. At least 30 people were killed in the central Afghan province of Daikundi, seven died in the western province of Herat, while another 11 lost their lives elsewhere in the country, according to provincial and central government officials. "Six hundred people urgently need to be evacuated by air and are exposed to danger from rising waters in Uruzgan province," a ministry official said, referring to a southern province. Hundreds of cattle also perished in the heaviest rains for years in drought-stricken Afghanistan. Rains caused avalanches and landslides in northeast Afghanistan, where nearly 20 people lost their lives last week, and across the border in Pakistan's Chitral region senior police officer Ijaz Ahmed said some communities had been cut off for days because of landslides and the weather. "If it persists there could be food and medicine shortages in some remote areas," he told Reuters by telephone from Chitral, 280 km (175 miles) north of Islamabad.Flooding swept away at least 20 houses near Chitral city, but no casualties were reported and the people had been evacuated to safety, Ahmed said.
