May 8 (Reuters) – Bodies were still being recovered on Monday from two villages in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where flooding killed more than 400 people last week in one of the country’s deadliest disasters in recent history. .
Many stunned survivors mourned relatives killed in flash floods that swept away entire homes and buried the villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi, both in South Kivu province, in mud and rubble.
“There in the mud, there was our house. We lost six people from our family. Five children died in our house and our mother who is the sixth,” said Alliance Mufanzara, 22, pointing to a gap. clay plot.
She, her younger brother, and her father are the only survivors.
“We are afraid because our whole family is finished,” he said. “We do not have anything.”
Aid workers have spent days recovering mud-covered bodies from destroyed villages in Kalehe territory, where days of torrential rain triggered landslides and caused rivers to overflow their banks on Thursday.
“This is an unprecedented humanitarian disaster,” government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said.
The large number of casualties has meant workers have had to bury victims in freshly dug mass graves, according to videos posted online, which Reuters could not immediately verify.
“We left everything behind,” said Bahati Kabanga, a 32-year-old Bushushu resident who managed to rescue her only son but lost her aunt, nephews and a sister.
“We felt a tremor while it was raining and decided to run away after seeing houses collapsing in the distance,” he told Reuters by telephone.
Just over 400 people have been confirmed dead, South Kivu Governor Theo Ngwabidje Kasi said Monday, more than double the number since Friday.
(1/3) Congolese civilians gather after the death of relatives after rains destroyed buildings and forced aid workers to pile mud-covered corpses into piles in the village of Nyamukubi, Kalehe territory in South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on May 6, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer
Civil society sources on the ground expect it to rise further as bodies are still floating in rivers and buried under rubble. Hundreds of people are still missing, according to the United Nations.
NATIONAL MOURNING DAY
The Congolese Red Cross said 274 people have been buried so far, including 98 women and 82 children.
More than 8,800 people have been affected by the floods, which have washed away homes and schools and cut roads, it said. Destroyed sewage systems and bodies lying in the rubble are raising concerns about sanitation, she said.
Families have been separated and traumatized survivors are sheltering in other people’s homes, the Red Cross added.
“If I hadn’t gone to the market, maybe I could have saved my children,” said Jolie Ambika Nathalie, a 34-year-old mother of five in Bushushu.
The coal seller left her three youngest children at home to run an errand when it started to rain. When she returned, the house was destroyed and her children, ages 6, 8 and 10, were nowhere to be seen.
“There was no sign of the house when I got back,” he told Reuters.
The central government has sent a delegation to the area and has declared Monday a day of national mourning.
Rising temperatures due to climate change are increasing the intensity and frequency of rainfall in Africa, according to UN climate experts.
This may add to the destruction caused by floods and landslides that were already common in South Kivu. Poor urban planning and weak infrastructure also make it more vulnerable to such events.
heavy rain too caused flooding and landslides in neighboring Rwanda last week, killing 130 people and destroying more than 5,000 homes.
Reporting by Sonia Rolley Writing by Sofia Christensen Editing by Alexander Winning
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