Bad weather: at least 104 dead in floods in the DRC

At least 104 people have died in floods in a village near the shores of Lake Tanganyika in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), announced Sammy Kalonji, administrator of the Fizi territory, where the stricken village is located, which has also suffered "enormous material damage" .

Residents of the village of Kasaba, located in the eastern province of South Kivu, were surprised "in their sleep " on the night of Thursday, May 8 to Friday, May 9, according to Bernard Akili, the chief of the Nganja sector, where the town of Kasaba is located. Torrential rains caused the Kasaba River to overflow its banks, and its waters surged downstream "carrying everything in its path, large stones, large trees, and mud, before razing the homes along the lake," he explained to AFP. "The deceased victims are mostly children and elderly people," he added, specifying that 28 people were also injured and 150 homes were destroyed. According to another witness, 119 bodies had been found by Saturday, May 10.

The village of Kasaba is only accessible by lake and is not covered by mobile phone networks, a humanitarian source said.

Such disasters are common in the DRC, particularly on the shores of the great lakes in the east of the country, surrounded by hills weakened by deforestation fueled by the charcoal trade. In 2023, floods killed 400 people in several communities along the shores of Lake Kivu in South Kivu province.

An estimated 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa were affected by torrential rains and severe flooding in West and Central Africa in 2024, according to figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The DRC, a vast country with an equatorial climate and one of the poorest in the world, is particularly vulnerable to these climatic phenomena due to uncontrolled urbanization and a lack of infrastructure in its cities and towns. In early April, at least thirty people were killed in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, after torrential rains.

Climate change is also a factor, according to experts, who estimate that extreme events will increase in frequency and intensity on the continent. By 2030, up to 118 million very poor Africans (with incomes less than $2 a day) will be exposed to drought, floods, and extreme heat.