Authorities report about 30 people killed amid flooding in the Congo capital

After heavy rains over the weekend wrecked roads and homes, the provincial health minister reported on Sunday that floods in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, had killed about 30 people.

According to Patricien Gongo Abakazi, “the death toll is provisional, but so far there are around thirty dead,” he told Reuters.

Drivers have been stranded since Saturday night after the main national road was blocked by the overflowing Ndjili River on Friday night, which flows through a portion of the city, which is home to about 17 million people.

Patricia Mikonga, a resident of Kinshasa, stated, “We spent the night in the car because there was no safe place to park on the way home from the airport last night to welcome a friend.”

Power was out in a number of neighborhoods.

According to Kerene Yala, a Makala district resident, the water supply stoppage was the primary issue in the area.

Daniel Bumba Lubaki, the governor of Kinshasa, claimed that although the water infrastructure had been impacted, the supply would be restored in two or three days.

He vowed to expel residents of unplanned colonies and attributed some of the deaths to unlawful housing in a televised speech.

According to hydrologist Dr. Raphael Tshimanga Muamba, human activities has had an impact on the river over time.

“These are anthropogenic actions where rivers are degraded; their dimensions no longer represent their initial capacity to contain floods,” he stated to Reuters.

The Central African country is at a dangerous time because of the flooding. Since the beginning of the year, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have stepped up their offensive in the country’s unstable east, killing almost 7,000 people in the first two months of the conflict.