![[Img #74675]](https://thelatestnews.world/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/They-discover-a-new-class-of-X-ray-sources-in-the-150x150.jpg)
First modification:
In Kalehe, located in the South Kivu province, heavy rains triggered flash floods, floods and landslides. As authorities continue to search through the rubble, they updated the death toll to 402 on May 8.
A job against the clock. The torrential rains that began to affect eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Thursday have already caused 402 deaths, local authorities confirmed.
“We just woke up and started the excavations that we are carrying out with the support of our friends from the Red Cross and various volunteers,” said Thomas Bakenga, administrator of Kalehe, a town in South Kivu province.
“Two bodies have just been found, taken from the rubble and swallowed by the mud, which gives us a provisional balance of 402 bodies,” he added.
First responders and rescue teams are facing one of the deadliest catastrophes in the country’s recent history. Videos on social media showed dozens of aid workers collecting bodies from freshly dug mass graves over the weekend.
“We are in dire need of help from the authorities and the people. This disaster is really serious,” the administrator stressed.
Rescuers and aid workers are working in Bushushu and Nyamukubi, two villages in South Kivu province, where several days of rain triggered landslides and river overflows on Thursday.
“We left it all behind,” said Bahati Kabanga, 32, a Bushushu resident. The man rescued his son, but lost several family members in a landslide. “We felt a tremor while it was raining and decided to run away after seeing houses collapsing in the distance,” he told Reuters.
Kabanga and other survivors remain in temporary shelters. “Moral is on the ground,” she said. He added: “These types of incidents can make you suicidal.”
A number that can increase
The death toll of 400 – double the number reported on Friday – was confirmed by Theo Ngwabidje Kasi, governor of South Kivu, after the discovery of 42 bodies floating in Lake Kivu, on the border with Rwanda.
According to the civil society organizations that attend to the emergency, the number could increase due to the number of corpses floating in the rivers and buried under the rubble, as well as hundreds of people reported missing.
The Government decreed a day of national mourning in memory of the victims, the majority from Bushushsu, Nyamukubi and Chavondo, the areas most affected by the rains that destroyed schools, bridges, roads and homes.
274 people were buried under meters of mud, according to an International Red Cross count, of which 98 were women and 82 children. Almost 9,000 people were affected by the rains, according to official counts.
“If I hadn’t gone to the market, maybe I would have saved my children,” said Jolie Ambika Nathalie, a 34-year-old mother of five in Bushushu. The woman told Reuters that she left her three young children at home to run an errand, but when she returned she found her home destroyed and no trace of her six, eight and 10-year-old children. “When I came back, there was no trace of the house,” she said.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi sent his “sincere condolences to the victims of the torrential rains that wreaked devastating havoc.”
Disasters of this type are common in the DRC and Rwanda due to the type of soil vulnerable to erosion, added to poor urban planning and poor infrastructure. The rains and their frequency are also becoming more intense due to the effects of climate change, according to experts.
With EFE and Reuters
