Flooded roads: Mother rushed to hospital on makeshift raft
Heavy rains turned an already difficult journey into a critical emergency for Lakshmi Nayak, a new mother just 10 days postpartum.
At least 41 people were killed and several others injured due to heavy rains and landslides, affecting almost 4,30,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to UN spokesman on Wednesday.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that torrential rains since October along the Ubangi River have caused flooding, impacting nearly 4,30,000 people”.
“The loss, in terms of property and lives, is really huge,” Kinshasa’s vice governor, Neron Mbungu, told the AFP,
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The dead included a child who was electrocuted, Mbungu added.
On Tuesday, heavy rains and landslides in the capital Kinshasa reportedly killed at least 41 people,” the spokesman was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency.
The official said a bridge connecting the districts of Lemba and Ngaba collapsed, and another was destroyed in the district of Kisenso.
The mayor of Lemba, Jean Nsaka, said a drainage ditch had given way under 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.
Daniel Mbau, a member of Parliament said after visiting Lemba commune, “If the housing units were decent, we would not have experienced disasters like this”.
In January last year, around 50 people were killed in landslides and floods after houses collapsed following just one night of heavy rain.
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