In the Democratic Republic of Congo, floods in the East give at least 104 dead – Liberation

At least 104 people died in floods in a village near the shores of Lake Tanganyika, In the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), announced this Saturday, May 10, an administrative manager. This manager, Sammy Kalonji, administrator of the territory of Fizi, in which the disaster village is located, also reported « Huge material damage ».

Residents of the village of Kasaba, located in the eastern province of South Kivu, were surprised « In full sleep » During the night from Thursday to Friday, said Bernard Akili, the chief of the Nganja sector, where the locality of Kasaba is located. According to him, the torrential rains overflowed the Kasaba river, whose waters swept downstream « By carrying everything on (their) passage, large stones, large trees and mud, before shaving the dwellings by the lake ».

« The mostly deceased victims are children and people of the third age »he said. 28 people were also injured and 150 homes were destroyed, according to Bernard Akili. Another actor in local civil society said 119 bodies were found this Saturday.

The village of Kasaba is only accessible by lake and is not covered by mobile telephony networks, a humanitarian source said. Such disasters are frequent in the DRC, particularly on the banks of the great lakes in the east of the country, surrounded by hills weakened by deforestation supplied by the coal trade.

In 2023, Floods had already caused the death of 400 people In several localities located on the banks of Lake Kivu, in the South Kivu province.

About 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa were affected by torrential rains and serious floods in West and Central Africa in 2024, according to figures from the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA).

The DRC, a huge country with an equatorial climate and among the poorest in the world, is particularly vulnerable to these climatic phenomena, due to anarchic urbanization and the lack of infrastructure in its towns and villages.

In early April, at least thirty people were killed in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, after torrential rains. Global warming is also in question, according to experts, who believe that extreme events will increase in frequency and intensity on the continent.

By 2030, up to 118 million very poor Africans (with income below 2 dollars per day) will be exposed to drought, floods and extreme heat.