Devastating floods are continuing to ravage large parts of Ethiopia since heavy rains first burst river banks last month, unleashing killer torrents of water, the United Nations said this week.
Across the country, flooding has affected about 357 000 people, more than 136 000 of whom are homeless, swamping temporary shelter sites and hampering deliveries of relief supplies, particularly in northern Amhara region, it said.
The new accounting represents a substantial rise in damage from the floods that killed at least 639 people in August in eastern, southern and northern Ethiopia and, as of August 25, had affected at least 118 000.
In Amhara, nearly 100 000 people, 37 000 of them displaced, are affected and 68 000 need immediate food assistance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
”Large areas of cropped land are swamped by the flood,” it said in a report released on Tuesday, adding that unusually heavy seasonal rains had expanded Lake Tana, the region’s largest body of water, by 50m.
This has ”increased the risk of further flood damage”, it said, adding that a newly constructed bridge to a resettlement camp had been destroyed in the region, compounding the inhabitants’ woes and forcing deliveries to be made by boat.
In the central and southern Oromiya region, OCHA reported a ”dramatic increase” in the number of flood-affected people to 77 000, with a doubling and tripling of the figure, to nearly 75 000, in the south-eastern Somali region.
The agency said water and sanitation facilities were urgently needed in camps for the displaced due to fears of the spread of waterborne diseases, such as cholera and malaria.
Ethiopian authorities have appealed for $27-million in funds to deal with the disaster, which struck first in the east in early August and then hit the south-west.
Forecasters have warned 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 along with other countries in the Horn of Africa, which have endured cycles of deadly weather for decades. — Sapa-AFP