The victims were mostly children and elderly people, with an additional 28 injured.Heavy overnight floods have washed away several villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing more than 100 people, according to local officials, in a nation suffering war and mass displacement.
The floods were triggered by torrential rains and surged through the Kasaba village, in South Kivu province, during the night of Thursday into Friday, regional official Bernard Akili told news agency AFP on Saturday.
Torrential rains caused the Kasaba River to burst its banks overnight, with the rushing waters “carrying everything in their path, large stones, large trees and mud, before razing the houses on the edge of the lake”, he said.
“The victims who died are mainly children and elderly,” he said, adding that 28 people were injured and some 150 homes were destroyed.
Sammy Kalonji, the regional administrator, said the torrent killed at least 104 people and caused “enormous material damage.”
South Kivu’s provincial health minister, Theophile Walulika Muzaliwa, told the Associated Press news agency that rescue operations were hampered by a lack of services and a shutdown of telephone lines due to the flooding. Advertisement
“Sector chiefs, village chiefs and locality chiefs, who are also members of the local government, are on site. The only humanitarian organisation currently present is the Red Cross,” he said.
A local resident told AFP that some 119 bodies had been found by Saturday.
Such natural disasters are frequ …
