In November 2019, around forty people died in Kinshasa, victims of torrential rains who had caused floods and landslides.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP and Reuters
At least 55 people died in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in floods and landslides caused by torrential rains, said Sylvano Kasongo, chief of the police of the capital of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic Democratic of Congo, Tuesday, December 13. And it is only a provisional assessment.
These floods also caused significant material damage and overwhelmed at the start of the morning to the large streets of the center of the megalopolis of around 15 million inhabitants. According to General Kasongo, the victims are counted in different districts and municipalities of the city, especially in valleys where dwellings have been destroyed by landslides.
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 commune of Ngaliema de Kinshasa. The rain fell in abundance during the night paralyzed the Congolese capital. The rain has notably caused a landslide in a peripheral district, cutting the national road 1 which leads west.
“In erosion, residences have been swept away,” the Prime Minister, Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, told journalists, referring to “around twenty deaths”. “Research in the rubble” continues, he said.
The national road 1, essential to the supply of the city, links 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 rains and aggravated by anarchic urbanization.
“Backstage work has already started,” said the Prime Minister. According to him, small vehicles could be able to take the road within twenty-four hours. For trucks, it takes “civil engineering work which can take three to four days”, he estimated.
previous in November 2019
In town, small rivers, canals and sewers have overflowed, flooding the streets including in La Gombe, one of the twenty-four municipalities in the city-province, which is generally the most spared by the daily difficulties of Kinois, such as lack of electricity, heap of garbage and recurring floods. This district notably houses ministries and embassies.
In November 2019, around forty people died in Kinshasa, victims of torrential rains that had caused floods and landslides. Mont-Ngafula had been one of the most affected municipalities.
In November, at least twenty people died in landslides and floods caused by heavy rain in the territory of Masisi (North Kivu), in the east of the DRC.