Severe Floods Hit 17 Countries in Africa
Pastor Dale Morgan
Severe Floods Hit 17 Countries in Africa*
By KATY POWNALL
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; 3:26 PM
SOROTI, Uganda -- Fish swam alongside the dugout canoes residents were
using to flee their flooded homes, riding the water gushing through the
streets of this town in eastern Uganda.
Across Africa, torrential downpours and flash floods have submerged
whole towns and washed away bridges, farms and schools. More than a
million people have been affected by the rains since the summer,
according to the United Nations. At least 200 people have been killed,
and hundreds of thousands displaced in 17 countries.
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In Uganda, one of the hardest-hit, humanitarian workers were trying to
reach villages that have been cut off by water amid warnings of food
crises and a rising risk of disease outbreaks.
"I've lost everything," Martha Amongin, 56, told The Associated Press on
Wednesday in Magoro, a town in eastern Uganda that is surrounded by
floodwater and has become inaccessible by road. "Life is going to be bad."
Driving rain pounded Amongin's hut for days until the structure gave
way, disintegrating into a pile of mud and burying everything inside.
The only route out of Magoro to reach a hospital or market is by
helicopter, boat or wading through waist-high water for three miles.
Earlier this week, the water was chest-deep, and residents said one
person drowned trying to make the crossing.
Richard Okello uses his canoe to ferry people across the murky water.
"Some people are scared to get in the boat, they don't know water and
they have never used a boat before," he said. "But what choice do they
have?"
Indeed, Ugandans haven't seen floodwaters like this in more than 35
years, a disaster Amongin remembers well.
That time, at least, "the floods happened after we harvested our crops,"
she said from her new home _ a mud hut much like her last one, but
shared with 20 people instead of four.
This time, Amongin's cassava, potato and groundnut crops were washed
away. "Now, we have nothing," the mother of two said.
The water also has brought much of Soroti, a 20-minute helicopter ride
from Magoro, to a standstill.
When Soroti is dry, the roads are potholed but passable, and bicycles
and buses are the best way to get around. Maize and cotton dot the
landscape.
But the floods have washed out roads and crops during a potentially
lucrative harvest season. Traffic police are stationed along high roads,
urging vehicles to turn back. Bicycles are stuck in the sticky mud.
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inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site.
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Other affected countries include Somalia, which is struggling to quell
an insurgency and to recover from a seemingly endless cycle of drought
and flood.
Interior Minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled said this week that southern
Somalia faced a "humanitarian catastrophe," because rivers had burst
their banks, flooding farms and destroying crops. The rivers began
flooding in late August following heavy rains in neighboring Ethiopia,
he said.
On the other side of the continent, Ghana has also been heavily hit.
Three regions in the north, the country's traditional breadbasket, have
been declared an official disaster zone after whole towns and villages
were submerged. Torrential rains between July and August killed at least
32 people and displaced a quarter of a million, the U.N. said.
Humanitarian workers are struggling to reach the neediest.
Tesema Negash, the World Food Program's country director in Uganda, said
it was impossible to trust the weather.
"It's a beautiful day today but we don't know what tomorrow brings,"
Negash said, speaking under a clear, blue sky _ just hours before the
clouds descended again, sending a deluge of rain onto a drenched landscape.