Flooding and landslide due to overnight torrential rains killed at least 39 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, on Tuesday, reported Reuters.
The authorities said heavy rain caused landslides near the University of Kinshasa.
“The loss, in terms of property and lives, is really huge,” Kinshasa’s vice governor, Neron Mbungu, said in an interview with the AFP news agency.
Mbungu said three of the city’s 26 districts were badly hit, adding that rescue workers were continuing to hunt for more bodies. He added that tt least two bridges collapsed as well as a part of a major road in the capital.
“Wherever we found death, we gave the mayors the means to bring the bodies to the morgue, and we also made available the means for the wounded to be taken to medical centres,” the vice governor said.
Jean Nsaka, the mayor of Lemba, said a drainage ditch had given way under the pressure of the water, and the highway had been engulfed.
“More than 300 homes have been flooded. There are many houses which have been destroyed,” Nsaka said.
Local official Seth Wenga said seven other people died in floods and landslides in South Kivu, in the far east of the vast country.
Notably, fatal floods and rains are frequent in Kinshasa, a city of almost 12 million people with poor infrastructure and where many neighborhoods are poorly planned. More than 50 people were killed in landslides and floods in January last year and several houses collapsed following just one night of heavy rain.
The DRC is also currently reeling through an Ebola outbreak that started in August last year in North Kivu province. It is the second Ebola outbreak deadliest on record and has so far killed more than 2 000 people. The United Nations had declared an international emergency in July.
