The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) on Thursday warned of a water crisis in Kabul, stating that six million people in the city are at risk of severe water shortages.

In a post on its X page, UN-Habitat said that water levels in Kabul have significantly declined.

According to the agency, addressing the water crisis in Afghanistan requires large-scale investment and close cooperation and coordination with international organizations.

The UN body also emphasized that raising public awareness on water consumption and management is essential to tackle the crisis.

Kabul is among the cities in the world that is rapidly losing its underground water resources at an alarming rate. If the current trend continues, Kabul could become the first modern city in the world to run out of drinking water within a few years.

Reports indicate that in some areas of Kabul, the groundwater level has dropped by more than 30 meters, and tens of thousands of families are facing severe drinking water shortages.

This drastic decline is mainly due to excessive water use, unregulated well drilling, and reduced rainfall in recent years.

Meanwhile, experts warn that if the situation persists, it could lead to the spread of infectious diseases, a decline in public health, and increased internal displacement.

Other specialists believe that practical and sustainable measures must be adopted to manage water resources.

They stress that without a national strategy for water resource management, not only Kabul but also other cities across Afghanistan could face similar crises in the near future.

Around 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities during the severe heatwave that ended last week, according to a rapid scientific analysis published on Wednesday.

The study targeted the 10 days, ending July 2, during which large parts of Western Europe were hit by extreme heat, with temperatures breaching 40 degrees Celsius (104°F) in Spain and wildfires breaking out in France, Reuters reported.

Of the 2,300 people estimated to have died during this period, 1,500 deaths were linked to climate change, which made the heatwave more severe, according to the study conducted by scientists at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“Climate change has made it significantly hotter than it would have been, which in turn makes it a lot more dangerous,” said Dr Ben Clarke, a researcher at Imperial College London.

The study covered 12 cities including Barcelona, Madrid, London and Milan, where the researchers said climate change had increased heatwave temperatures by up to 4 degrees Celsius, read the report.

The researchers used established epidemiological models and historical mortality data to estimate the death toll, which reflects deaths where heat was the underlying reason for mortality, including if exposure exacerbated pre-existing health conditions.

The scientists said they used peer-reviewed methods to quickly produce the estimated death toll, because most heat-related deaths are not officially reported and some governments do not release this data.

Last month was the planet’s third-hottest June on record, behind the same month in 2024 and 2023, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a monthly bulletin on Wednesday.

Western Europe experienced its warmest June on record, with much of the region experiencing “very strong heat stress” – defined by conditions that feel like a temperature of 38 degrees Celsius or more, Copernicus said.

“In a warming world, heatwaves are likely to become more frequent, more intense and impact more people across Europe,” said Samantha Burgess, Copernicus’ strategic lead for climate.

Researchers from European health institutes reported in 2023 that as many as 61,000 people may have died in Europe’s sweltering heatwaves in 2022, according to new research, suggesting countries’ heat preparedness efforts are falling fatally short, Reuters reported.

The build-up of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere – which mostly come from the burning of fossil fuels – means the planet’s average temperature has increased over time. This increase in baseline temperatures means that when a heatwave comes, temperatures can surge to higher peaks.

The death toll from catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 78 on Sunday, including 28 children, as the search for girls missing from a summer camp continued and fears of more flooding prompted evacuations of volunteer responders, Reuters reported.

Larry Leitha, sheriff of Kerr County in Texas Hill Country, said 68 people had died in flooding in his county, the epicenter of the flooding, among them 28 children. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, speaking at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, said another 10 had died elsewhere in Texas and confirmed 41 were missing.

President Donald Trump sent his condolences to the victims and said he would probably visit the area on Friday. His administration had been in touch with Abbott, he added.

“It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible. So we say, God bless all of the people that have gone through so much, and God bless, God bless the state of Texas,” he told reporters as he left New Jersey.

Among the most devastating impacts of the flooding occurred at Camp Mystic summer camp, a nearly century-old Christian girls camp where 10 Camp Mystic campers and one counselor were still missing, according to Leitha.

“It was nothing short of horrific to see what those young children went through,” said Abbott, who noted he toured the area on Saturday and pledged to continue efforts to locate the missing.

The flooding occurred after the nearby Guadalupe River broke its banks after torrential rain fell in the central Texas area on Friday, the U.S. Independence Day holiday.

Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said the destruction killed three people in Burnet County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County and one in Williamson County.

“You will see the death toll rise today and tomorrow,” said Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, also speaking on Sunday.

Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain across the region, about 85 miles (140 km) northwest of San Antonio, read the report.

Kidd said he was receiving unconfirmed reports of “an additional wall of water” flowing down some of the creeks in the Guadalupe Rivershed, as rain continued to fall on soil in the region already saturated from Friday’s rains.

“We’re evacuating parts of the river right now because we are worried about another wall of river coming down in those areas,” he said, referencing volunteers from outside the area seeking to help locate victims.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources to first responders in Texas after Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the Department of Homeland Security said. U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and planes were aiding search and rescue efforts.

Trump has previously outlined plans to scale back the federal government’s role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to shoulder more of the burden themselves.

Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including to the agency that oversees the National Weather Service, led to a failure by officials to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings ahead of the storm, Reuters reported.

Trump’s administration has overseen thousands of job cuts from the National Weather Service’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, former NOAA director Rick Spinrad said.

Spinrad said he did not know if those staff cuts factored into the lack of advance warning for the extreme Texas flooding, but that they would inevitably degrade the agency’s ability to deliver accurate and timely forecasts.

Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the National Weather Service under Trump’s oversight.

“That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup,” he said referencing his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. “But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is 100-year catastrophe.”

He declined to answer a question about FEMA, saying only “They’re busy working, so we’ll leave it at that,” Trump said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees FEMA and NOAA, said a “moderate” flood watch issued on Thursday by the National Weather Service had not accurately predicted the extreme rainfall and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade the system.

Joaquin Castro, a Democratic U.S. congressman from Texas, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that fewer personnel at the weather service could be dangerous.

“When you have flash flooding, there’s a risk that if you don’t have the personnel … to do that analysis, do the predictions in the best way, it could lead to tragedy,” Castro said.

Katharine Somerville, a counselor on the Cypress Lake side of Camp Mystic, on higher ground than the Guadalupe River side, said her 13-year-old campers were scared as their cabins sustained damage and lost power in the middle of the night.

“Our cabins at the tippity top of hills were completely flooded with water. I mean, y’all have seen the complete devastation, we never even imagined that this could happen,” Somerville said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday.

Somerville said the campers in her care were put on military trucks and evacuated, and that all were safe.

The disaster unfolded rapidly on Friday morning as heavier-than-forecast rain drove river waters rapidly to as high as 29 feet (9 meters).

A day after the disaster struck, the summer camp, where 700 girls were in residence at the time of the flooding, was a scene of devastation. Inside one cabin, mud lines indicating how high the water had risen were at least six feet (1.83 m) from the floor. Bed frames, mattresses and personal belongings caked with mud were scattered inside. Some buildings had broken windows, one had a missing wall.