SEVER flooding has claimed 22 lives and driven about 1,000 people from their homes in the Cameroon coast town of Limbe, local officials said on Monday. Heavy rains have struck a number of west African countries, causing floods in low-lying districts and claiming several dozen lives, according to reports across the region in the past two weeks. In Limbe, two days of torrential rain last week led to landslides and the destruction of many wood and earthen houses. According to an initial official toll on June 28, 10 people had died and were missing. The governor of Cameroon’s Southwest Province has set up a crisis committee and the authorities have been supplied with food, clothes and medicines by local groups, the Cameroonian Red Cross and a charity, SOS Dialogue. – AFP
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