April 1, 2015 - EARTH - The
following list constitutes the latest reports of high tides, heavy
rainfall, flash floods, widespread flooding, sea level rise and
catastrophic storms.
The heavy rain and resulting floods and landslides have prompted the government in Peru to declare a state of emergency in Tumbes, Cajamarca, Lima, Tacna and Moquegua regions over the last week.
Further rainfall has been forecast until 05 April 2015. Some river levels remain high, particularly in the north of the country, and alerts have been issued.
At least 22 people have been killed in floods and landslides since the heavy rainfall began around 22 March 2015. There are many people still missing. These figures are likely to change as more thorough assessments are carried out. Floods and numerous landslides have blocked roads, and authorities are yet to reach some of the affected areas.
Tumbes Region
As of 30 March 2015, the government of Peru officially declared state of emergency in the Tumbes region.
Heavy rainfall since 26 March 2015 has caused landslides, mudslides and increased flow of rivers and tributaries in the region in the country’s far north. The Tumbes and Zarumilla rivers have overflowed, damaging houses, roads and infrastructure in the three provinces of the region (Contralmirante Villar, Tumbes and Zarumilla).
At least 500 homes and hundreds of hectares of crops have been affected in several districts of the region, reported the regional president, Ricardo Flores Dioses,as quoted in local media. The technical secretary of the Regional Emergency Operations (COER), Eduardo Arbulú said that in this region there nearly 1,900 families affected by the rains.
Flooding has also caused widespread damage to crops in the region, affecting over 6,000 producers, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MINAGRI), who said that over 7,500 hectares of rice, organic bananas, cocoa and lemons have all suffered damage.
On 29 March 2015, Peru’s meteorological agency, SENAMHI, recorded flow of the Zarumilla river to be 1362.07 m3 per second, which is the highest recorded since last year and more than twice the normal flow.
INDECI, Peru’s civil protection agency, has recommended that residents living in areas along the Zarumilla river to relocate to safe areas on higher ground.
Cajamarca Region
La Republica are reporting that at least 14 people have died in landslides in Cajamarca region since the recent heavy rains began.
Five people died in a landslide in Nuevo Horizonte, Sócota, and three in a landslide in Santa Cruz de Cutervo. Landslides and floods have destroyed roads and have made areas of the region inaccessible. On the road linking Cutervo to Jaén there have been as many as 30 landslides. La Republica say that other victims died as they were unable to reach a hospital and receive medical care in time. Districts including Choros, Sacilia, Cujillo, Toribio Casanova, La Ramada and La Capilla are either completely or partially cut off.
On 28 March 2015, the central government declared a state of emergency lasting 60 days for 21 districts affected by heavy rains, floods and landslides in Cajamarca region.
The affected districts include Jaén, Colasay, San Luis de Lucma, Choros, Socota, Callayuc, Cutervo, La Ramada, Santa Cruz, Toribio Casanova, Santo Domingo de La Capilla and Querocotillo.
Local media say that around 15,000 people near Jaén have been cut off after a river overflowed, blocking an important road. INDECI say that 232 families in Jaén have been made homeless by the floods and landslides.
Almost 4,000 hectares of crops have been damaged in Chota and Cutervo provinces in the region.
Lima Region
In Lima region, landslides occurred in the district of Lurigancho-Chosica on 23 March, killing eight people and injuring 25, while another six people were still missing and over 150 houses were destroyed, as of 24 March 2015.
Media say that as many as 13 landslides have been recorded in Chosica since 23 March 2015. The floods and landslides were caused by torrential rainfall on 23 March 2015 which, according to some reports, lasted or over 6 hours.
WATCH: Flooding in Peru.
Another landslide occurred in Huarochiri province of Lima on the same day, injuring 30 people and destroying 110 houses.
The landslides blocked major roads linking Lima to the central Andes. Chosica also suffered severe flooding after the Rimac river overflowed. Levels of the river have since started to fall, according to a report of 31 March 2015 from SENAMHI.
The road has since re-opened and a state of national emergency was declared in Chosica surrounding areas on 25 March 2015 in order to allow quicker access to relief and repair funds. The President of Peru and local authorities have visited the zone and are assisting the affected population in coordination with INDECI and other state authorities.
Practical Action Flood Resilience Project
Practical Action, the development charity, currently has a team of people working in the Chosica district of Lima.
Colin McQuistan, policy and practice advisor on disaster risk reduction and climate change said: “The fatalities have been from informal communities located high up in the river basin. They have been hit by both mud avalanches and erosion of the land on which they live.
“This is a poor area of Lima. Along the river temporary and unofficial housing is growing and coming ever closer to the river bank. We have been working with the municipal government and local community leaders to put in place reliable effective methods of evacuation, to ensure housing is better able to withstand this type of event and to improve the ability of people to recover their livelihoods after flooding or landslides”.
Practical Action has been working in the affected area for the last few months, initiating a project designed to make those living on the banks of the Rio Rimac more resilient to flooding and better prepared to cope when a disaster strikes.
About the project, Colin McQuistan said:
“Unfortunately, the project is still in its early stages and our work has mainly been with communities lower down the river basin and not those affected by the landslides. So while we have not been able to prevent the loss of life this time, we believe that in future people near to the Rio Rimac will be far better equipped to survive such floods.
“It is ironic that this has happened just days after the World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan where we argued strongly that urban development must take into account climate change and the threat of disasters such as flooding.
“Poverty, vulnerability and disasters are linked”
“Poverty, vulnerability and disasters are linked – it is most often the poorest that are worst affected and suffer most. Their poverty makes them more vulnerable. Their capacity to cope with disasters and recover from the effects are constrained by their lack of resources. But if their risk is managed then dramatic flood events need not turn into tragic disasters.”
The project is one of a number Practical Action has been implementing in communities vulnerable to climate change throughout the world as part of the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance programme.
Tacna Region
Heavy rain resulted in floods and landslides in district of Ilabaya, province of Jorge Basadre in Tacna region on 26 March 2015. Houses, roads, infrastructure and crops have all been damaged. Peru’s central government has since declared a state of emergency for the district.
Moquegua Region
The government has also declared a state of emergency in the province of General Sánchez Cerro ; and the province of Mariscal Nieto, in the Moquegua region.
Forecast and Alerts
Further rainfall is expected until 05 April 2015 at least, although the rain is unlikely to be as intense as previous weeks.
SENAMHI have issued alerts of Level 2 or 3 for the regions of Ancash, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cajamarca, Huancavelica, Huanuco, Junin, La Libertad, and Pasco.
SENAMHI say that levels of the Tumbes, Chira, Piura and Jequetepeque rivers are all high and, as of 31 March 2015, are still increasing. A red alert remains in place for these rivers.
Areas of Peru Affected by Floods, Heavy Rain and Landslides
The infographic below shows the areas of Peru affected by the recent severe weather.
At least 16 people are believed to be dead after they were trapped under a landslide in Ledan area of central Indian-held Kashmir’s Bidgam district. Police sources said that they have so far recovered the dead bodies of 10 victims who had been buried under the landslide Monday morning.
“Rescue operations are still on but with every passing hour, the chances of rescuing anyone alive are diminished,” a senior police official told The Anadolu Agency.
The Jhelum river and several of its streams swelled after incessant rains poured into the valley for more than 48 hours.
“We have made announcements for people living in low-lying areas and near the embankments of the rivers and streams to vacate their houses and move to safer places,” chief engineer of the Irrigation and Flood Control department Javed Jaffer told The Anadolu Agency. “The flood alert has been sounded in Srinagar and Pulwama districts.”
Even before the government announced the flood alert, thousands of people shifted their belongings to the upper floors of their homes and dispatched older family members and children to safer areas.
“There is panic all over here and people cannot believe that they are in the middle of another flood when they have not yet recovered from the last floods,” said Adil Ahmad Khan, a resident of the Nowgam area.
The downpour, meanwhile, stopped early Monday morning, giving hope to people that the water levels could recede.
The floods in September, which were the worst the region had experienced in a century, killed more than 300 people and caused unprecedented damage to property, business and infrastructure, still visible in the regional capital Srinagar.
Experts say the floods deposited a large volume of silt in the flood channels, which were not properly dredged after the local government began to focus on state elections in November.
“They did not clear the flood channels, and there have been rains and snow and the melting of glaciers has contributed to this situation. But what is most important is that we are staring at a catastrophe once again,” a senior government official in the meteorological department told The Anadolu Agency.
A mudslide triggered by heavy rain bore down on two houses early today, burying a newborn and at least a dozen others under a mountain of debris, hours before officials formally declared what many Kashmiris had been dreading.
Another deluge - months after last year's September floods that had left hundreds dead and a trail of devastation.
The formal announcement of the flood came around 7am, after the water level in the Jhelum crossed the 18ft danger mark at Srinagar's Ram Munshi Bagh and touched 19.5ft on the gauge.
A let-up in the rain gave people a breather but the forecast from the weather office, which predicted intermittent showers over the next three days followed by a heavy downpour on April 3, meant the respite would be brief.
Earlier, around 3.30 in the morning, hell broke loose in Laden, a village in central Kashmir's Budgam district, when two houses on the edge of a hillock collapsed under tonnes of mud, burying all 16 residents.
Budgam sub-divisional magistrate Aijaz Ahmad said rescuers had recovered six bodies, including that of a newborn. Four of the dead were women. "There are no chances of survival of the remaining 10," he said.
Among the dead and missing, 11 were from one family.
Officials said hundreds of local people and police and other security force personnel were trying to retrieve the bodies. "It is not possible to deploy heavy machinery to the spot because of its inaccessibility. A makeshift road has been built to help people reach the spot," an official said, adding the land under the two houses had caved in and sunk them around 70ft below.
Wailing relatives have rushed to the village but the silence of one man mirrored the despair. "The head of one of the two families was not at home when the tragedy struck. He is back in the village but is speechless," said an official.
Some good news trickled in from Poonch district in Jammu, where a bold operation by forces helped rescue 32 people trapped on a raised land in the middle of a river.
A locality in Srinagar's Bemina, which had faced the brunt of last year's floods, was under water today after a breach in an embankment. The ground floor of Sher-e-Kashmir hospital at Bemina was also submerged, prompting the administration to shift patients elsewhere.
People across Kashmir had been resigned to fresh floods after heavy snowfall and rain through much of March had left water levels high in streams and lakes.
Memories of the September deluge - that left 300 people dead - still fresh, hundreds of shopkeepers had shifted their wares to safer areas, although many are still hoping the situation won't be as bad this time.
Official sources said the National Disaster Response Force had dispatched eight fully equipped teams to the Valley while the air force has placed its resources on standby. "Two Mi-17 helicopters each at Jammu, Udhampur and Srinagar. One each Cheetah helicopter of the IAF is on standby at Srinagar and Jammu to be part of rescue and relief operations. The IAF has assured the civil administration of all possible assistance in this time of crisis," said Col S.D. Goswami, the defence spokesperson at the Northern Command headquarters.
Chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed urged people not to panic. "Shelters have been made functional.... Adequate number of sandbags are available and are being used in critical embankments so that there is no breach," he said.
The central government has granted Rs 200 crore as immediate relief while Prime Minister Narendra Modi rushed minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to Kashmir for an on-the-spot assessment.
Local Democratic Republic of the Congo radio station Radio Okapi is reporting that at least 14 people have died in flooding in the territory of Fizi, South Kivu province in the east of the country after several days of heavy rain.
Rivers have overflowed, flooding farmland, blocking roads and damaging 100s of homes. According to the source, the worst affected areas are Mutambala, Ubwari, Makobola, Swima, Kabunde and Baraka, where around 50 homes have been completely destroyed.
Radio Okapi also report that parts of the neighbouring provinces of North Kivu and Katanga, in particular the town of Kalemie, have also been affected by flooding and heavy rain in the last few days.
Four people were killed in flood-related incidents in the region in October 2014. Later that month at least 30 people were killed by floods in Kalehe Territory in South Kivu province after 3 days of heavy rain.
Fizi is around 130 km south of Bujumbura, Burundi, where 15 died in a landslide after heavy rain on Sunday 29 March 2015.
- Floodlist | Telegraph.
Peru Floods and Landslides – 5 Regions Call State of Emergency
 |
| Flood and landslide damage in Chosica, Peru. Photo: Practical Action |
The heavy rain and resulting floods and landslides have prompted the government in Peru to declare a state of emergency in Tumbes, Cajamarca, Lima, Tacna and Moquegua regions over the last week.
Further rainfall has been forecast until 05 April 2015. Some river levels remain high, particularly in the north of the country, and alerts have been issued.
At least 22 people have been killed in floods and landslides since the heavy rainfall began around 22 March 2015. There are many people still missing. These figures are likely to change as more thorough assessments are carried out. Floods and numerous landslides have blocked roads, and authorities are yet to reach some of the affected areas.
Tumbes Region
As of 30 March 2015, the government of Peru officially declared state of emergency in the Tumbes region.
Heavy rainfall since 26 March 2015 has caused landslides, mudslides and increased flow of rivers and tributaries in the region in the country’s far north. The Tumbes and Zarumilla rivers have overflowed, damaging houses, roads and infrastructure in the three provinces of the region (Contralmirante Villar, Tumbes and Zarumilla).
At least 500 homes and hundreds of hectares of crops have been affected in several districts of the region, reported the regional president, Ricardo Flores Dioses,as quoted in local media. The technical secretary of the Regional Emergency Operations (COER), Eduardo Arbulú said that in this region there nearly 1,900 families affected by the rains.
 |
| Flood and landslide damage in Chosica, Lima, Peru, March 2015. Photo: Practical Action |
Flooding has also caused widespread damage to crops in the region, affecting over 6,000 producers, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MINAGRI), who said that over 7,500 hectares of rice, organic bananas, cocoa and lemons have all suffered damage.
On 29 March 2015, Peru’s meteorological agency, SENAMHI, recorded flow of the Zarumilla river to be 1362.07 m3 per second, which is the highest recorded since last year and more than twice the normal flow.
INDECI, Peru’s civil protection agency, has recommended that residents living in areas along the Zarumilla river to relocate to safe areas on higher ground.
Cajamarca Region
La Republica are reporting that at least 14 people have died in landslides in Cajamarca region since the recent heavy rains began.
Five people died in a landslide in Nuevo Horizonte, Sócota, and three in a landslide in Santa Cruz de Cutervo. Landslides and floods have destroyed roads and have made areas of the region inaccessible. On the road linking Cutervo to Jaén there have been as many as 30 landslides. La Republica say that other victims died as they were unable to reach a hospital and receive medical care in time. Districts including Choros, Sacilia, Cujillo, Toribio Casanova, La Ramada and La Capilla are either completely or partially cut off.
 |
| Lvele 3 (Orange) and Level 2 (yellow) Alerts. Moderate rain forecast from 01 to 05 April 2015 in some areas of Peru. Image: SENAMHI |
 |
| Image: La Republica |
On 28 March 2015, the central government declared a state of emergency lasting 60 days for 21 districts affected by heavy rains, floods and landslides in Cajamarca region.
The affected districts include Jaén, Colasay, San Luis de Lucma, Choros, Socota, Callayuc, Cutervo, La Ramada, Santa Cruz, Toribio Casanova, Santo Domingo de La Capilla and Querocotillo.
Local media say that around 15,000 people near Jaén have been cut off after a river overflowed, blocking an important road. INDECI say that 232 families in Jaén have been made homeless by the floods and landslides.
Almost 4,000 hectares of crops have been damaged in Chota and Cutervo provinces in the region.
Lima Region
In Lima region, landslides occurred in the district of Lurigancho-Chosica on 23 March, killing eight people and injuring 25, while another six people were still missing and over 150 houses were destroyed, as of 24 March 2015.
Media say that as many as 13 landslides have been recorded in Chosica since 23 March 2015. The floods and landslides were caused by torrential rainfall on 23 March 2015 which, according to some reports, lasted or over 6 hours.
WATCH: Flooding in Peru.
Another landslide occurred in Huarochiri province of Lima on the same day, injuring 30 people and destroying 110 houses.
The landslides blocked major roads linking Lima to the central Andes. Chosica also suffered severe flooding after the Rimac river overflowed. Levels of the river have since started to fall, according to a report of 31 March 2015 from SENAMHI.
The road has since re-opened and a state of national emergency was declared in Chosica surrounding areas on 25 March 2015 in order to allow quicker access to relief and repair funds. The President of Peru and local authorities have visited the zone and are assisting the affected population in coordination with INDECI and other state authorities.
Practical Action Flood Resilience Project
Practical Action, the development charity, currently has a team of people working in the Chosica district of Lima.
Colin McQuistan, policy and practice advisor on disaster risk reduction and climate change said: “The fatalities have been from informal communities located high up in the river basin. They have been hit by both mud avalanches and erosion of the land on which they live.
“This is a poor area of Lima. Along the river temporary and unofficial housing is growing and coming ever closer to the river bank. We have been working with the municipal government and local community leaders to put in place reliable effective methods of evacuation, to ensure housing is better able to withstand this type of event and to improve the ability of people to recover their livelihoods after flooding or landslides”.
Practical Action has been working in the affected area for the last few months, initiating a project designed to make those living on the banks of the Rio Rimac more resilient to flooding and better prepared to cope when a disaster strikes.
About the project, Colin McQuistan said:
“Unfortunately, the project is still in its early stages and our work has mainly been with communities lower down the river basin and not those affected by the landslides. So while we have not been able to prevent the loss of life this time, we believe that in future people near to the Rio Rimac will be far better equipped to survive such floods.
“It is ironic that this has happened just days after the World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan where we argued strongly that urban development must take into account climate change and the threat of disasters such as flooding.
“Poverty, vulnerability and disasters are linked”
“Poverty, vulnerability and disasters are linked – it is most often the poorest that are worst affected and suffer most. Their poverty makes them more vulnerable. Their capacity to cope with disasters and recover from the effects are constrained by their lack of resources. But if their risk is managed then dramatic flood events need not turn into tragic disasters.”
The project is one of a number Practical Action has been implementing in communities vulnerable to climate change throughout the world as part of the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance programme.
Tacna Region
Heavy rain resulted in floods and landslides in district of Ilabaya, province of Jorge Basadre in Tacna region on 26 March 2015. Houses, roads, infrastructure and crops have all been damaged. Peru’s central government has since declared a state of emergency for the district.
Moquegua Region
The government has also declared a state of emergency in the province of General Sánchez Cerro ; and the province of Mariscal Nieto, in the Moquegua region.
Forecast and Alerts
Further rainfall is expected until 05 April 2015 at least, although the rain is unlikely to be as intense as previous weeks.
SENAMHI have issued alerts of Level 2 or 3 for the regions of Ancash, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cajamarca, Huancavelica, Huanuco, Junin, La Libertad, and Pasco.
SENAMHI say that levels of the Tumbes, Chira, Piura and Jequetepeque rivers are all high and, as of 31 March 2015, are still increasing. A red alert remains in place for these rivers.
Areas of Peru Affected by Floods, Heavy Rain and Landslides
The infographic below shows the areas of Peru affected by the recent severe weather.
Jhelum River Threatens More Floods in Kashmir after 48 Hours of Rain
Landslides and flooding caused by heavy rains have raised fears in Kashmir of a repeat of major flooding that hit the region only six months ago.At least 16 people are believed to be dead after they were trapped under a landslide in Ledan area of central Indian-held Kashmir’s Bidgam district. Police sources said that they have so far recovered the dead bodies of 10 victims who had been buried under the landslide Monday morning.
“Rescue operations are still on but with every passing hour, the chances of rescuing anyone alive are diminished,” a senior police official told The Anadolu Agency.
The Jhelum river and several of its streams swelled after incessant rains poured into the valley for more than 48 hours.
“We have made announcements for people living in low-lying areas and near the embankments of the rivers and streams to vacate their houses and move to safer places,” chief engineer of the Irrigation and Flood Control department Javed Jaffer told The Anadolu Agency. “The flood alert has been sounded in Srinagar and Pulwama districts.”
Even before the government announced the flood alert, thousands of people shifted their belongings to the upper floors of their homes and dispatched older family members and children to safer areas.
 |
| Kashmiri muslims cross a waterlogged street in city center Lal chowk in
Srinagar the summer capital of Indian administered Kashmir on March
29,2015 .The valley has been witnessing heavy rainfall since Saturday, leading to a fresh floods panic and sudden surge in water level in rivers, streams and rivulet across Kashmir. Photo: AA |
 |
| A Kashmiri muslim carries his belongings in waterlogged city center Lal
chowk in Srinagar the summer capital of Indian administered Kashmir on
March 29,2015. The valley has been witnessing heavy rainfall since Saturday, leading to a fresh floods panic and sudden surge in water level in rivers, streams and rivulet across Kashmir. Photo: AA |
“There is panic all over here and people cannot believe that they are in the middle of another flood when they have not yet recovered from the last floods,” said Adil Ahmad Khan, a resident of the Nowgam area.
The downpour, meanwhile, stopped early Monday morning, giving hope to people that the water levels could recede.
The floods in September, which were the worst the region had experienced in a century, killed more than 300 people and caused unprecedented damage to property, business and infrastructure, still visible in the regional capital Srinagar.
Experts say the floods deposited a large volume of silt in the flood channels, which were not properly dredged after the local government began to focus on state elections in November.
“They did not clear the flood channels, and there have been rains and snow and the melting of glaciers has contributed to this situation. But what is most important is that we are staring at a catastrophe once again,” a senior government official in the meteorological department told The Anadolu Agency.
Flooding in India leads to massive mudslides, dozens buried
 |
| A Kashmiri muslim carries his belongings in waterlogged city center Lal
chowk in Srinagar the summer capital of Indian administered Kashmir on
March 29,2015. The valley has been witnessing heavy rainfall since Saturday, leading to a fresh floods panic and sudden surge in water level in rivers, streams and rivulet across Kashmir. |
A mudslide triggered by heavy rain bore down on two houses early today, burying a newborn and at least a dozen others under a mountain of debris, hours before officials formally declared what many Kashmiris had been dreading.
Another deluge - months after last year's September floods that had left hundreds dead and a trail of devastation.
The formal announcement of the flood came around 7am, after the water level in the Jhelum crossed the 18ft danger mark at Srinagar's Ram Munshi Bagh and touched 19.5ft on the gauge.
A let-up in the rain gave people a breather but the forecast from the weather office, which predicted intermittent showers over the next three days followed by a heavy downpour on April 3, meant the respite would be brief.
Earlier, around 3.30 in the morning, hell broke loose in Laden, a village in central Kashmir's Budgam district, when two houses on the edge of a hillock collapsed under tonnes of mud, burying all 16 residents.
Budgam sub-divisional magistrate Aijaz Ahmad said rescuers had recovered six bodies, including that of a newborn. Four of the dead were women. "There are no chances of survival of the remaining 10," he said.
Among the dead and missing, 11 were from one family.
Officials said hundreds of local people and police and other security force personnel were trying to retrieve the bodies. "It is not possible to deploy heavy machinery to the spot because of its inaccessibility. A makeshift road has been built to help people reach the spot," an official said, adding the land under the two houses had caved in and sunk them around 70ft below.
Wailing relatives have rushed to the village but the silence of one man mirrored the despair. "The head of one of the two families was not at home when the tragedy struck. He is back in the village but is speechless," said an official.
Some good news trickled in from Poonch district in Jammu, where a bold operation by forces helped rescue 32 people trapped on a raised land in the middle of a river.
A locality in Srinagar's Bemina, which had faced the brunt of last year's floods, was under water today after a breach in an embankment. The ground floor of Sher-e-Kashmir hospital at Bemina was also submerged, prompting the administration to shift patients elsewhere.
People across Kashmir had been resigned to fresh floods after heavy snowfall and rain through much of March had left water levels high in streams and lakes.
Memories of the September deluge - that left 300 people dead - still fresh, hundreds of shopkeepers had shifted their wares to safer areas, although many are still hoping the situation won't be as bad this time.
Official sources said the National Disaster Response Force had dispatched eight fully equipped teams to the Valley while the air force has placed its resources on standby. "Two Mi-17 helicopters each at Jammu, Udhampur and Srinagar. One each Cheetah helicopter of the IAF is on standby at Srinagar and Jammu to be part of rescue and relief operations. The IAF has assured the civil administration of all possible assistance in this time of crisis," said Col S.D. Goswami, the defence spokesperson at the Northern Command headquarters.
Chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed urged people not to panic. "Shelters have been made functional.... Adequate number of sandbags are available and are being used in critical embankments so that there is no breach," he said.
The central government has granted Rs 200 crore as immediate relief while Prime Minister Narendra Modi rushed minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to Kashmir for an on-the-spot assessment.
Severe Floods Hit Eastern Provinces of Democratic Republic of the Congo
 |
| A family flooded by rainwater. © Radio Okapi /John Bompengo |
Local Democratic Republic of the Congo radio station Radio Okapi is reporting that at least 14 people have died in flooding in the territory of Fizi, South Kivu province in the east of the country after several days of heavy rain.
Rivers have overflowed, flooding farmland, blocking roads and damaging 100s of homes. According to the source, the worst affected areas are Mutambala, Ubwari, Makobola, Swima, Kabunde and Baraka, where around 50 homes have been completely destroyed.
Radio Okapi also report that parts of the neighbouring provinces of North Kivu and Katanga, in particular the town of Kalemie, have also been affected by flooding and heavy rain in the last few days.
Four people were killed in flood-related incidents in the region in October 2014. Later that month at least 30 people were killed by floods in Kalehe Territory in South Kivu province after 3 days of heavy rain.
Fizi is around 130 km south of Bujumbura, Burundi, where 15 died in a landslide after heavy rain on Sunday 29 March 2015.
- Floodlist | Telegraph.
