The floods were sparked by torrential rains and ripped through the Kasaba village in the Sud Kivu province during the night of Thursday-Friday, Bernard Akili, a regional official, told AFP.
Torrential rains caused the Kasaba river to burst its banks overnight, with the rushing waters "carrying everything in their path, large stones, large trees and mud, before razing the houses on the edge of the lake," he said.
"The victims who died are mainly children and elderly," he said, adding that 28 people were injured and some 150 homes were destroyed.
Sammy Kalonji, the regional administrator, said the torrent killed at least 104 people and caused "enormous material damage."
Another local resident told AFP that some 119 bodies had been found by Saturday.
The village, which sits on the Tanganyika lake and is only accessible by the lake, does not have internet service, a local humanitarian worker told AFP
Such natural disasters are frequent in the DRC, particularly on the shores of the great lakes in the east of the country, with the surrounding hills weakened by deforestation.
In 2023, floods killed 400 people in several communities located on the shores of Lake Kivu, in South Kivu province.
Somalia floods kill seven, displace 200 families
Mogadishu (AFP) May 10, 2025 -
At least seven people were killed in an overnight devastating flood in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, local government officials said on Saturday.
Torrential rains, which started on Friday night and lasted about 10 hours touched off the floods that displaced more than two hundred families.
Nine houses were completely destroyed across various districts of Mogadishu, while six major tarmac roads were also damaged.
"Seven people died, two of them women," Salah Omar Hassan, the spokesman of the Banadir regional administration, said in a press conference.
Hassan added "The floods also swept through the houses of 200 families while destroying six key tarmac roads, which are very important for the movement of transport and people in the capital Mogadishu."
Abdullahi Ali, a 35-year-old father, told AFP that two children died in houses in his neighbourhood, saying, "I have never seen rain this heavy in Mogadishu."
"It continued for more than ten hours and in my neighbourhood, several houses were destroyed," Ali said.
Another resident, Fadumo Ali, said people were trapped in their homes after the heavy rain caused widespread havoc.
A UN report published on April 30 revealed that more than 45,000 people have been affected by flash floods in Somalia since mid-April.
The Horn of Africa is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, and extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent and intense.
Somalia was hit by intense floods in 2023. More than 100 people were killed and over a million displaced after severe flooding caused by torrential rains linked to the El Nino weather pattern.
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