Floods drive thousands from wrecked homes along rain-swelled Congo River

 At least 50 people have been killed and thousands more left homeless in southwestern Congo, after heavy rain falls leading to floods and a river bursting its banks.


Kalamu River, which flows through the city of Boma into the Congo River, overflowed for two hours before the waters receded, washing some victims across the border into Angola.

The waters left parts of the city, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sole Atlantic port, covered in up to a metre of mud. Searchers are dig out bodies.

"The rains on the night of Monday to Tuesday in Boma have caused at least 50 deaths," said Jacques Mbadu, governor of Kongo Central province. "We buried 31 bodies on Wednesday and expect about 20 more bodies back today that ended up across the border in Angola."

Mbadu said the waters hit a peak of 2m above their usual level, wrecking at least 500 homes and leaving several thousand people homeless.

Boma, which lies near the mouth of the Congo River about 470km southwest of Kinshasa, is home to 150,000-200,000 people. "This is a cyclical phenomenon which (usually) happens every 10 years. It last happened in January 2015, but with climate change it’s now happened again in December 2016," Mbadu said.

Locals said two of the city’s three districts were still covered in mud up to a metre deep in places, and described tragic scenes with waters rushing into their houses.

"I lost my two children, carried off by the waters, which rose up to 3m like a tsunami. I could only watch them as they were washed away," said government worker Faustin Lutete.

Fisherman Jean-Marie Kola said he just had time to run far away when his house began shaking. "It collapsed later." Provincial governor Mbadu said the authorities were encouraging homeless people to seek shelter with relatives rather than reception centres.

He said he had been working with a Dutch company to reduce the risk of the Kalumu flooding.

Congolese towns and cities are typically built up in a haphazard fashion. Government services to deal with natural disasters are practically nonexistent.

Floods in Kinshasa in December 2015 left more than 30 people dead and 20,000 families homeless, most of them in the capital’s slums, where residents were left to battle with their bare hands through smelly mud, slime and faecal matter.

Despite its vast mineral wealth, Congo is classed among the world’s poorest countries. Two-thirds of its 70-million live on less than $1.25 a day.

Source: AFP