Heavy rain, swirling waters, mud, silt and marsh combined on Wednesday to hamper frantic efforts to reach thousands of villagers marooned by deadly flash floods in southern Ethiopia, officials said.
The elements, combined with the reluctance of pastoralist herders to leave their surviving cattle for higher ground, frustrated the delivery of the first overland relief supplies that reached the remote region on Tuesday, they said.
Delays in the distribution of food, water, medicine and shelter stoked fears that the death toll will rise in the devastated area, where at least 364 people were killed when the Omo River burst its banks on August 13, displacing about 10 000.
”Our teams are still struggling to reach the affected areas but the marsh and silt created by the floods are preventing us,” said Petros Gebre, the deputy police chief of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s state.
”And aid distribution is becoming problematic as about 3 000 people who have declined to be relocated are unreachable by land,” he told Agence France-Presse by phone from Jinka, about 800km south-west of Addis Ababa.
”We are providing them with aid drops of aid from helicopters but it’s not clear how long we can do this,” Petros said, calling the situation a ”logistical nightmare”.
Floods caused by unusually heavy seasonal rains have battered huge portions of southern, eastern and northern Ethiopia since the beginning of the month, killing at least 626 nationwide and affecting 118 000 people, many of whom have been left homeless.
The downpours have pushed water levels at at least three critical dams to breaking point and authorities began controlled releases from one of the facilities on Monday.
Forecasters have warned that six areas in the north, west and south of 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 about 70-million people, has faced heavy floods and droughts in recent years. — Sapa-AFP