The authorities had warned: the first assessment of the floods and landslides caused by torrential rains in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was only provisional.
A report, still provisional, communicated Tuesday, December 13 in the evening by the government announces 120 dead. The precedent, transmitted by the police of the capital of DRC, reported at least 55 dead.
At the end of a crisis meeting, the government decreed three days of national mourning from Wednesday, said in a press release the services of Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde.
These floods also caused significant material damage and submerged in the early morning to the main streets of the center of the megalopolis of approximately 15 million inhabitants. According to General Sylvano Kasongo, chief of police in the capital of the DRC, the victims are counted in different districts and communes of the city, in particular in valleys where houses have been destroyed by landslides.
“The Wall Has Crumbled”
Among the dead are nine members of the same family, including young children, killed in the collapse of their house in the Binza Delvaux district of the Ngaliema commune of Kinshasa.
“Around 4 a.m., we were woken up by water entering the house”testified a relative of the family. “We channeled the water and, thinking that there was no longer any danger, we went back into the house to sleep, we were soaked”, he added. The family went back to bed and “right after, the wall collapsed”.
Heavy rain overnight paralyzed the Congolese capital. In particular, it caused a landslide in a peripheral district, cutting off national road 1 which leads west.
“In the erosion, residences have been washed away”declared on the spot to journalists Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, while evoking “twenty dead”. “Searching in the Rubble” continue,” the Prime Minister said.
National road 1, essential for supplying the city, connects the capital to the river port of Matadi, between Kinshasa and the Atlantic Ocean. This subsidence of the roadway occurred in the hilly commune of Mont-Ngafula, where frequent landslides are caused by the rains and aggravated by anarchic urbanization.
“Backfilling work has already started”, said the Prime Minister. According to him, small vehicles could be on the road within twenty-four hours. For trucks, you need “civil engineering work that can take three to four days”he estimated.
Previous in November 2019
In town, the small rivers, canals and sewers overflowed, flooding the streets including in La Gombe, one of the twenty-four municipalities of the city-province, which is generally the most spared from the daily difficulties of the people of Kinshasa, such as as the lack of electricity, the accumulation of rubbish and the recurring floods. This district is home to ministries and embassies.
In November 2019, around 40 people were killed in Kinshasa, victims of torrential rains which had caused floods and landslides. Mont-Ngafula had been one of the most affected communes.
in november, at least twenty people were killed in landslides and floods caused by heavy rains in Masisi territory (North Kivu), eastern DRC.