NEWS– Heavy overnight floods have washed away several villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing more than 100 people in a nation suffering war and mass displacement.
South Kivu Regional official Bernard Akili told journalists that the floods were triggered by torrential rains that surged through the Kasaba village, in South Kivu Province during the weekend.
Akili explained that torrential rains caused the Kasaba River to burst its banks overnight on Saturday and the rushing waters carried everything into their path that includeed large stones, large trees and mud, before razing the houses on the edge of the lake.
He said that the victims who died are mainly children and elderly, while 28 people were injured and about 150 homes were destroyed. The Regional Administrator, Sammy Kalonji said the torrent killed at least 104 people and caused enormous material damage.
South Kivu’s Provincial Minister for Health Theophile Walulika Muzaliwa, told journalists that rescue operations were hampered by a lack of services and a shutdown of telephone lines due to the flooding.
The only humanitarian organisation currently present in the area is the Red Cross, which has set up a transitional office to help the injured.
Such natural disasters are frequent in Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly on the shores of the Great Lakes in the East of the country, and the surrounding hills have been weakened by deforestation.
In 2023, floods killed 400 people in several communities located on the shores of Lake Kivu, in South Kivu province, while last month, 33 people were killed in flooding in the capital, Kinshasa.
Democratic Republic of Congo has also been subject to decades of fighting between government troops and rebels in the eastern part of the country, which escalated in late January when the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group captured Goma, the capital of North Kivu state, in a rapid and surprise offensive.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed and 2,880 injured in the Goma offensive, worsening what is already considered one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with more than seven million people remaining displaced.
Meanwhile authorities in Somalia have confirmed that at least 7 people have died, and main roads were cut off after heavy rains led to flooding in Somalia’s capital City, Mogadishu.
The Regional Administration spokesperson, Abdinasir Hirsi Idle, told journalists that rescue efforts were continuing, but said that the death toll could rise because the rains were heavy and lasted for several hours, causing nine houses to collapse across different neighbourhoods, and at least six major roads to suffer severe damage.
Somalia has in the past suffered extreme climate shocks, including prolonged dry seasons that have caused droughts and heavy rains resulting in floods.
The latest rains went on for about eight hours, leaving waist-high waters in neighbourhoods where some residents were trapped and others were forced to move to higher ground.
A resident, Mohamed Hassan, told journalists that some older people were still trapped while others spent the night on rooftops, shivering from the cold with no food to eat.
Floodwaters also damaged key infrastructure, halting public transport and temporarily disrupting operations at the main Aden Abdulle airport, but later flights resumed.
The Somalia Disaster Management Agency has not yet released an official death toll, but it said the assessment was under way to determine the extent of the damage.
The country’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources said in a statement earlier today that substantial amount of rainfall, was recorded in over 8 consecutive hours and warned of flash floods in other regions outside the capital Mogadishu.
Additional Reporting from Associated Press
