More than 100 people have been killed in northern and western Rwanda in floods caused by heavy monsoon rains that lashed eastern Africa, the Rwandan Broadcasting Agency (RBA), which oversees public broadcast media, announced Wednesday.
The rains that fell last night (Tuesday) caused a disaster in the northern and western governorates. Currently, provisional figures released by the administration of these provinces indicate that 109 people have been declared dead,” the RBA writes on its website.
The Western Province was the hardest hit, with 95 people killed, while 14 people died in the Northern Province, RBA details.
Infrastructure has also been destroyed. Pictures posted on his Twitter account show destroyed homes, roads cut off by landslides, flooded fields and mudslides.
In Ngororero County, in the west of the country, the flooding of the Nyabarongo River has significantly cut off the main route for traffic, “making the area inaccessible by road”, adds the RBA, warning that the water level “continues to rise”.
“Relief efforts began immediately, including helping to bury the victims of the disaster and providing supplies to those whose homes were destroyed,” said Minister Responsible for Emergency Management Marie-Solange Kaiser.
The monsoon rains that hit East Africa were also deadly in Uganda.
Six people were killed in a landslide caused by torrential rains in the southwestern district of Kisoro, close to the Rwandan border, according to the local Red Cross organization.
The organization confirms that five of the victims belong to the same family in the village of Beyzi.
Footage released by the Uganda Red Cross shows residents digging in a mudslide on a hillside and houses sunk on the roof.
East Africa regularly experiences bouts of flooding during the rainy seasons.
By May 2020, at least 65 people had died in Rwanda, East Africa was hit by heavy monsoon rains that also claimed at least 194 lives in Kenya.
At the end of 2019, two months of continuous rain caused floods and mudslides, killing at least 265 people and displacing hundreds of thousands in the region, mainly in Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan.
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