Flooding inundates African towns, killing 150
KAMPALA, Uganda – Torrential downpours and flash floods across Africa have submerged whole towns and washed away bridges, farms and schools. This summer’s rains have killed at least 150 people, displaced hundreds of thousands and prompted the U.N. to warn Saturday of a rising risk of disease outbreaks.
In eastern Uganda, nine people have been reported killed and 150,000 made homeless since early August. An additional 400,000 – mainly subsistence farmers – have lost their livelihoods after their fields were flooded or roads washed away. The rains are forecast to worsen in the next month.
“The problem is getting worse by the hour,” said Uganda’s Minister for Relief and Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru, who spent Saturday viewing the affected areas by plane. “Access to some communities is almost impossible. We will need boats and helicopters to deliver emergency interventions.”
On the other side of the continent, Ghana in west Africa also has been hard hit. Three regions in the north, the country’s traditional breadbasket, have been declared an official disaster zone after whole towns and villages were submerged. Torrential rains between July and August killed at least 18 and displaced a quarter of a million, Information Minister Oboshie-Sai Cofie said Saturday.
“It is a humanitarian disaster. People have nowhere to go. Some of them are just hanging out there waiting for help to come at a point,” Cofie said. The Ghanian government had received considerable aid, she said.
More than a million people across at least 17 countries have been affected, said Elisabeth Byrs of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. People need clean water after their normal sources were contaminated, and emergency food and shelter after fields and houses were washed away.
“The rains are set to continue, and we are really concerned about the situation because a lot of people are homeless and infectious diseases could emerge,” Byrs said from Geneva.
It is difficult to say how much rain has fallen; few African countries have meteorological services, and those that do offer only forecasting, lacking the staff and infrastructure to track weather in remote areas.
Governments say tens of thousands need aid in Kenya and Ethiopia, which was devastated by flooding last year as well.
In some parts of Africa, officials say deforestation has exacerbated the problem. Charles Ngiratware, the mayor of western Nyabihu district in Rwanda, said nearby Gishwati forest used to hold in far more floodwater. It was about 52,000 acres in 1981, but pressure to clear land for farming means it was only about 1,500 hectares, or about 3,705 acres, by 2002.