No fewer than 100 people have been killed after flooding ravaged parts of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Gatekeepers News reports that Kinshasa’s police head, Sylvano Kasongo, earlier stated that the death toll had stood at 50.
Reuters quoted Kasongo as saying, “We are already at around fifty deaths and that is not yet final.”
According to him, the rains caused landslides and roads to submerge.
Images shared online showed entire neighbourhoods flooded with muddy water and roads ripped apart by sinkholes.
One video appeared to show a major highway cut in half by a giant hole that had swallowed several vehicles in the Mont-Ngafula district.
TheCable has not been able to immediately verify these images.
DRC’s President, Félix-Antoine Tshilombo, extended his condolences to the families in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement read, “The Head of State, Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo learned, with great sorrow, of the death of several people including children, following the torrential rains which fell on Kinshasa, in the night from Monday to Tuesday.
“The Head of State presents his most heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families, asks the national and provincial governments to come to their aid and speed up the rainwater drainage works to prevent this type of disaster from happening again.”
This is not the first time DRC’s capital will be hit by floods.
In 2019, at least 39 people died when torrential rain flooded low-lying districts, and some buildings and roads collapsed.
Kinshasa, which was once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, is now one of the world’s fastest-growing megacities but has been vulnerable to seasonal flash floods.
