September 14, 2006
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – At least eight people, including a family of seven, were killed in a fierce rainstorm that pounded eastern Ethiopia as floods continued to ravage the country, officials said
The new fatalities brought the nationwide toll from unusually heavy seasonal rains and flash floods since last month to at least 647 and came in Dire Dawa, which is still recovering from deadly August flooding, they said.
The seven-member family was killed when rains late on Wednesday collapsed their small shack in the town, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Addis Ababa, regional police spokesman Biniam Fikru said.
“The house broke down because of the heavy brain and killed the whole family,” he told AFP from Dire Dawa, adding that an eighth person, an 18-year-old boy died after being electrocuted by a fallen power line.
Dire Dawa was the first Ethiopian municipality to be hit by the fatal flash floods in early August when two rivers burst their banks, killing at least 256 people, and displacing more than 10,000.
No new inundations were reported from Wednesday’s storm but the United Nations said this week devastating floods continued to wreak havoc across Ethiopia, affecting some 357,000 people.
More than 136,000 of those have been left homeless, swamping temporary shelter sites and hampering aid deliveries, particularly in northern Amhara region, where nearly 100,000, 37,000 of them displaced, are affected, it said.
The new figure represents a substantial rise in damage from the flash floods that had affected at least 118,000 people in in eastern, southern and northern Ethiopia as of August 25.
In Amhara, 68,000 people are in need immediate food assistance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report released on Tuesday.
“Large areas of cropped land are swamped by the flood,” it said, noting that unusually heavy seasonal rains had expanded Lake Tana, the region’s largest body of water, by 50 meters (yards).
This has “increased the risk of further flood damage,” it said, adding that a newly constructed bridge to a resettlement camp had been destroyed in the region, adding to inhabitants’ woes and forcing deliveries to be made by boat.
In the central and southern Oromiya region, OCHA reported a “dramatic increase” in the number of flood-affected people to 77,000, with a doubling and tripling of the figure, to nearly 75,000, in the southeastern Somali region.
The agency said water and sanitation facilities were urgently needed in camps for the displaced due to fears of the spread of waterborne diseases, like cholera, and malaria.
Ethiopian authorities have appealed for 27 million dollars (21 million euros) in funds to deal with the disaster, which struck first in the east in early August and then hit the southwest.
Forecasters have warned the country will likely face further flood threats from the rains that are expected to continue until the end of the wet season in September.
Ethiopia, home to some 70 million people, has faced heavy floods and droughts in recent years along with other countries in the Horn of Africa which have endured cycles of deadly weather for decades.
Source: AFP, Sept 14, 2006
