At least 176 people have died in flash floods in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The regional governor gave this information on Friday. The buildings have suffered a lot due to the heavy rains. The situation is such that along with rescuing the people, the assistant personnel are also searching for the dead bodies. There are piles of dead bodies wrapped in mud.
In the Kalehe area of South Kivu province, Thursday’s rain caused rivers to swell, inundating the villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi, according to the agency.
According to Theo Ngwabidje Kasi, the governor of South Kivu, the death toll is 176, it may increase. He said that around 100 people are still missing. Kasol Martin, a local civil society member, says that 227 bodies have been recovered so far. Martin said that people were sleeping in the open. Schools and hospitals have all been washed away.
On Friday, survivors stood wearily outside a wooden shed where Red Cross workers stacked bodies of those killed in the floods. Most of the dead bodies were not clothed, due to strong current the clothes had been removed from the bodies and now the bodies were only covered with mud.
The condition of this area is very bad. The devastation can be clearly seen in the pictures coming from here. The house is not even fit to go inside. Everything blew up. Robert Masamba, a doctor at Kalehe’s main hospital, said wounded survivors had continued to arrive since Thursday evening. He said that my team and I have not slept yet. We have got 56 patients, out of which 80% have fractures.
Floods and landslides are not uncommon in South Kivu, which shares a border with Rwanda. Heavy rains also caused floods and landslides in Rwanda this week, killing 130 people and destroying more than 5,000 homes.
The government has announced that on Monday national mourning will be observed in memory of those lost, with the flag flown at half-mast.
At least 176 people have died in flash floods in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a regional governor said on Friday, as heavy rain destroyed buildings and forced aid workers to gather mud-clad corpses into piles. https://t.co/dXlC5xppA7
— Reuters Science News (@ReutersScience) May 6, 2023
Experts say that due to climate change, such weather-related incidents are happening continuously and with great intensity in Africa. A similar devastation took place in Congo in October 2014, when heavy rains destroyed more than 700 houses. According to the United Nations, more than 130 people were reported missing at that time.
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