The death toll from these natural disasters caused by heavy monsoon rains has risen to 394 and claimed the lives of around 130 people in neighboring Rwanda, a number likely to rise as the recovery of bodies continues.
Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has announced that Monday May 8 will be a day of national mourning and that a ministerial team will visit the region to coordinate humanitarian aid and disaster management, according to statements by the government spokesperson. Patrick Muyaya.
The new flood invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo began its intensity on Thursday and led to the sinking of villages and washing away a large number of houses, and its waters engulfed hundreds of inhabitants.
Last December, dozens of people were killed in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, following floods, and the government declared 3 days of national mourning.
The bumper was gone, and the flooding got more brutal
Although heavy rains are common in East African countries, their intensification and resulting landslides, often at short intervals, are signs of climate change caused by excessive human activity.
Environmental expert Ayman Kadouri explains how it happened:
Floods are widespread natural disasters in various rainy climatic ranges, but there are environmental reasons that increase the severity of flood impact and increase its degree of danger. Among these factors is the removal of vegetation and the leveling of forests, which are the main source of movement of flood waters to villages and towns near rivers and lakes. This removal resulted in landslides due to the absence of the stabilizing factor, which are plants. Climate change has also caused a disruption in the amount of seasonal rainfall in the eastern part of the continent, between drought at times and extreme abundance at other times. These are questions expected by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in several studies which have warned that human manipulation of the ecosystem, through deforestation and the razing of green land, means increasing the risk of natural disasters, including floods.
The need to adapt
As for the removal of a large part of forests and green spaces in several countries (the natural buffer of floods), how will countries frequently exposed to these disasters face the future?
The environmental expert replies to ‘Sky News Arabia’ that the solution lies in ‘adapting’ to climate change, again intensifying vegetation cover, and switching to clean energy to reduce pollution which increases greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse effect.
And limits the capacity of the Democratic Republic of Congo to this “adaptation” and its projects, violence between armed groups in the east of the country.
During his meeting with a number of leaders from this region, held in the neighboring country of Burundi on Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all armed groups in eastern Democratic Congo to lay down their arms, claiming that their presence causes “humanitarian tragedies” and threatens regional security.
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