By Ebi Kesiena
More than 100 people have died after heavy rains and flooding in eastern DR Congo’s South Kivu province, officials said Friday.
This comes days after torrential downpours killed dozens in neighbouring Rwanda.
The assistant administrator of South Kivu’s Kalehe territory, Archimede Karhebwa, which was hit by the floods, told AFP that about 100 people had died, according to a provisional toll.
Several villages in Kalehe, which lies west of Lake Kivu, were submerged when rivers burst their banks after heavy rains, he said.
Karhebwa explained that the floods carried away hundreds of houses and also “surprised vendors and their clients in the markets”.
Innocent Mupenda, a civil society figure from the region, said that a downpour started late on Thursday afternoon before the “river carried away villagers”.
His mother and 11 children died in the flood, Mupenda said.
Vital Muhini, an elected official from Kalehe, also told a local radio station that the floods had been “devastating human and material damage”.
He put the number of deaths at around 150, with 72 people killed in the village of Chabondo, 31 in the village of Bushungu, and 45 in the village of Nyamukubi.
However, we are unable to independently confirm the death toll, with reported figures varying.
A member of a rescue team deployed on Friday afternoon said that 68 bodies had been found as the search contines in the rubble.
Eastern Congo’s deadly flooding follows the death of at least 127 people this week after downpours in neighbouring Rwanda, which lies on the other side of Lake Kivu.
