Flash floods devastate villages in Congo
STORY: Flash floods in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday (May 5) killed scores and destroyed buildings... forcing aid workers to stack mud-covered bodies on top of each other.
The rainfall in South Kivu province caused rivers to overflow a day prior, inundating the villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi.
People were seen digging through the mud to recover bodies.
Survivors gathered outside a wooden shed where Red Cross workers placed corpses on top of each other.
Some describe unimaginable loss.
“I lost my husband and now I am left with five children."
"I lost my wife and sixteen of my children, all of them are gone. I am alone in my home now."
The leader of a civil society group, Martin Ngonyozi, said people had nowhere to live and nothing to eat.
Dozens of injured people were being treated at the territory's main hospital, where Dr. Norbert Walangulu said there is not enough medicine and equipment to properly treat them.
It’s an opportunity, he says, to send a message that during disasters we must be rescued and helped with consumables.
Floods and landslides are not uncommon in South Kivu, which shares a border with Rwanda… where this week heavy rains killed 130 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes.
