On Monday, rescue workers were still recovering bodies from the floods that killed over 400 people in two towns in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo last week.
Over the weekend, survivors were seen watching as humanitarian workers piled remains into freshly constructed mass graves.
Workers in South Kivu province’s Bushushu and Nyamukubi villages have been working feverishly for days to retrieve mud-caked remains after days of torrential rain caused landslides and prompted rivers to break their banks on Thursday.
“We left everything behind,” said Bahati Kabanga, 32, a Bushushu native who saved his lone child but lost his aunt, nephews, and sister in the process.
We felt a tremor when it was raining and chose to evacuate after seeing distant buildings collapse.
Kabanga and his surviving family members have found refuge at a Catholic school.
“Morale is zero,” he said. “An experience like that can make you consider suicide.”
Since Friday, the death toll has more than quadrupled, with South Kivu governor Theo Ngwabidje Kasi declaring well over 400 confirmed dead early Monday.
According to civil society sources on the ground, the figure is anticipated to rise significantly, since bodies are still being recovered in streams and behind rubble. Hundreds of people have still to be discovered, according to the United Nations.
According to the Congolese Red Cross, 274 people were killed, including 98 women and 82 children.
The floods have harmed around 8,800 people, demolishing homes and schools and shutting roads, according to the report. Concerns about sanitation were raised as a result of reports of damaged or destroyed sewage systems and remains resting in the debris.
According to the Red Cross, traumatized individuals have been separated from their families and are seeking refuge in the homes of strangers.
“If I hadn’t gone to the market,” Jolie Ambika Nathalie, a 34-year-old mother of five from Bushushu, said, “maybe I would have saved my children.”
When it began to rain, the charcoal vendor’s wife was forced to leave her three youngest children at home to do an errand. Her three children, aged six, eight, and ten at the time, were not to be found when she returned to a shattered house.
“When I got back, there was no sign of the house. The central government in Kinshasa has not yet announced a death toll. It has declared Monday to be a national day of sorrow and has sent a delegation to the area.
Warming temperatures, according to United Nations climate experts, are increasing the severity and frequency of Africa’s rains.
This might exacerbate the destruction caused by South Kivu’s annual floods and landslides. Because of its poor urban planning and obsolete infrastructure, the city is extremely vulnerable to natural calamities.
Heavy rains in neighboring Rwanda last week produced floods and landslides that killed 130 people and damaged over 5,000 homes.
