‘Catastrophic’ floods in Congo kill more than 400 people
The death toll from last week’s deadly floods and landslides in the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to more than 400 people, the government said Monday, as rescuers and family members searched through the rubble and mud for victims and survivors of the disaster.
The floods began Thursday when heavy rains caused rivers to burst their banks, sending rushing water and mud into villages, washing away homes and destroying farmland.
“The situation is catastrophic,” said Remy Kasindi, a representative of a civil society group in South Kivu, where the floods occurred. “It is a humanitarian crisis that gnaws at our conscience.”
Mr Kasindi said survivors searched for their relatives in the mud and some bodies were taken from nearby Lake Kivu.
Nearly 3,000 families have been left homeless by flooding and landslides, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Their houses are damaged or destroyed. Twelve hundred homes were completely razed to the ground, the agency said. Congo celebrated a day of national mourning for the victims of the floods on Monday.
Before the flood, people from the region had traveled to the area to sell their agricultural produce at a market there, making it more difficult to count the total number of missing, rescuers said. Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble on Monday.
Several news outlets reported that authorities had to bury the bodies in mass graves.
Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, took to Twitter to plead for a dignified treatment of the dead.
“Digging up the bodies, identifying them through DNA, burying them individually and not in a mass grave.” He wrote.
The floods affected the Kalehe area of South Kivu, particularly the villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi. The flood-affected area had taken in thousands of displaced people from the province of Nord-Kivu, which was ravaged by fighting between the Congolese army and rebels.
While the dry season is fast approaching for this region, it looks like there will be more rainfall over the next 10 days, some of which could be more than usual. Any rain, above average or not, that falls on the already saturated soil can increase the risk of flooding because the land and rivers already have abundant water and the rain has nowhere to go. The area is also mountainous, which increases the risk of landslides.
The villages are located on the shore of Lake Kivu, which separates Congo from Rwanda. Last week, more than 120 people died in devastating floods and landslides caused by heavy rainfall in Western Rwanda.
On a visit to Burundi, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Saturday that the floods were “another illustration of accelerated climate change and its catastrophic impact on countries that have done nothing to contribute to global warming. the earth”.
Experts have said that while linking specific events to climate change requires extensive analysis, climate change has caused extreme rainfall events to be more frequent and intense.
Last year, more than 140 people were killed by flooding and landslides Congo’s capital, Kinshasaand Central Africa as a region has recently been ravaged by deadly floods.
Local and international charities have helped the area by providing food or health aid to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases. Cholera is endemic to the area, according to the United Nations.
Médecins Sans Frontières stepped up its presence to help the wounded, and the Red Cross was deployed to search for bodies and help organize funerals.
Judson Jones contributed reporting.