More than 1,100 families flee Nile River floods
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More than 1,100 families flee Nile River floods
By Opheera McDoon
Reuters
Monday, August 14, 2006; 1:17 PM
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Heavy floods have forced more than 1,100 families
to flee in Sudan, while the river Nile has risen to a serious level, an
official said on Monday.
Awad Widatalla Hussein, head of the civil defense authority, said only
one person was officially confirmed dead, although Sudanese papers
carried numbers of at least eight killed in Khartoum alone.
The Nile in Khartoum was at 16.40 metres on Sunday, above its height on
the same day in 1988, when scores of people were killed and hundreds of
thousands lost their homes due to heavy rains and floods.
"This Nile level is high alert," Hussein told Reuters. "It is very
serious."
"The difference between now and 1988 is that now we have mostly
flooding and then we had heavy rain too," Hussein said.
Hussein said he did not expect the effects of the floods this year to
be as bad as in 1988.
"Now the Sudanese people are more aware of floods and the government is
more prepared." He said there were 10 checkpoints along the river to
measure water levels.
Parts of the capital were under water on Monday with many of the dirt
roads turning to clay pits. Rainstorms knocked out electricity in many
parts of the town.
Areas of Tutti Island in the confluence where the Blue and White Nile
rivers meet in Khartoum were under water.
Heavy floods have been common in the past few years in Sudan's east
along the Blue Nile but happen more rarely in the capital and the north
where much of Sudan's population live.
An outbreak of cholera early this year in the south, the western Darfur
region and in Khartoum has heightened fears of water-borne diseases
spreading because of the floods.