Rescuers battled heavy rains in south-west Ethiopia on Tuesday to save up to 20 000 people marooned by floods that killed at least 125 on the weekend as forecasters warned of more downpours.
Poor weather grounded helicopter flights in the remote region, forcing authorities to deploy emergency personnel by boat to at least five inundated villages where residents whose homes were submerged spent the night outside without shelter.
”As the weather is too difficult for helicopters we were unable to fly,” said Tsegay Muluneh, police commissioner for the affected South Omo region. ”The people of the five villages remain surrounded by water.
”We have dispatched more boats from the area and from the federal government with more personnel, medical teams, swimmers, divers and emergency food,” he told Agence France-Presse by phone from the region, about 700km from Addis Ababa.
In addition to the human deaths, the flooding of the Omo River and tributaries that feed Lake Turkana on the Kenyan-Ethiopian border swept away hundreds of livestock and destroyed property of an as-yet undetermined value.
While frantic efforts continued to save those stranded, meteorologists warned of more heavy rain, which is blamed for flash floods that killed 256 people in eastern Ethiopia last week.
Ethiopia’s National Metrological Agency (NMA) said six regions — West Tigray, Amhara, Benishangule Gumuz, Central and Western Oromia and Addis Ababa and its environs — would likely be affected before the end of the month.
”Concerned administrative bodies in areas prone to flooding in the past should realise the seriousness of the situation and take precautionary measures and heed NMA forecasts and warnings,” the federal Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Commission said.
The latest deaths bring the toll to at least 386 people drowned by flooding in Ethiopia in less than two weeks as the June to September rainy season takes hold. — Sapa-AFP