A tornado that tore through remote villages in the central Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) killed 164 people, destroyed homes and ruined crops, the country’s top health official said on Wednesday.
The 15-minute cyclone injured another 1 700 people — more than 200 critically — as it twisted through Bandundu province late on Sunday, said Mashako Mamba, DRC’s health minister.
”Most people were killed or injured by debris from huts and buildings made of sticks,” Mamba said.
”The crops have been uprooted by the wind and the water and famine is threatening,” Mamba said. Bandundu province is 250 kilometres northeast of the capital, Kinshasa.
News of the disaster was slow to reach the capital due to the region’s remoteness. An airplane stocked with medicine has headed for the region, Mamba said, and emergency teams of trauma specialists and surgeons are being mobilised.
The DRC is emerging from a four-year, six-nation war that has killed an estimated 2,5-million people, most from war-induced disease and starvation. Despite a series of peace accords, fighting between rebel groups has continued in the east of mineral-rich central African country. – Sapa-AP