Torrential Rains Cause Death And Flooding

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

August 11, 2003
Posted to the web August 11, 2003

Dakar

Torrential rains caused severe flooding in Senegal and southeastern
Mauritania at the weekend, cutting roads, washing out crops and drowning
livestock.

Seven people died in Senegal, where many mud-built houses collapsed,
according to the national fire service. The Moroccan news agency MAP
meanwhile reported three deaths in Mauritania.

Officials in both countries expressed fears that the extremely wet
conditions, following on from last year's drought, could lead to swarms of
locusts forming in both countries.

Matam, a town in the arid northeast of Senegal on the Mauritanian
frontier, recorded 131 mm of rain, its heaviest downpour since 1984. Many
cattle, goats and sheep were carried away by floodwaters in the
surrounding area.

Heavy rainfall was also recorded around the towns of Kaolack, Nioro and
Kaffrine, about 150 km southeast of the capital Dakar.

Ibrahima Gabar Diop, the head of Senegal's fire service, said many farmers
had lost the food stocks they were relying on to see them through until
the next harvest towards the end of this year.

Large numbers of people made homeless by the floods had sought shelter in
schools and the main road leading east from Dakar to the Malian frontier
had been cut after a bridge collapsed, he added.

Locusts have also begun appearing in large numbers around Tambacounda in
southeastern Senegal, the breadbasket of the country. And MAP agricultural
expers in Mauritania as saying that the first decent rains in the
southeast after three years of drought could lead to swarms of locusts
forming there too.

In Senegal, Diop warned that further heavy downpours were likely before
the rainy season comes in about six weeks time.



Copyright © 2003 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. All rights
reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

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