Congo: In the eastern DRC, flash floods caused nearly 200 deaths
No less than 176 individuals have passed on in streak floods in an eastern area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a regional governor said on Friday, as weighty downpour obliterated structures and constrained help laborers to accumulate mud-clad carcasses into heaps.
The rainfall in Kalehe region in South Kivu area made waterways flood on Thursday, immersing the towns of Bushushu and Nyamukubi.
Théo Ngwabidje Kasi, the governor of South Kivu, said that 176 people had died and that others were still missing. A neighborhood common society part, Kasole Martin, said 227 bodies had been found.
Martin stated, “Schools and hospitals have been swept away, people are sleeping out in the open.”
On Friday, frail-looking survivors stood outside a wooden shed where blue scrubbed Red Cross workers were stacking bodies. Many of them lacked clothing and were filthy. 72 bodies were counted by a Reuters reporter.
Photos revealed that the flattened houses’ corrugated iron roofs protruded from thick mud layers.
Robert Masamba, a doctor at the main hospital in the Kalehe territory, said that injured people had been coming in since Thursday night.
“My group and I have not dozed. We have gotten 56 patients, 80% of which have breaks,” he said.
