20 killed in southern Ethiopia floods
Fresh flooding has killed 20 people in southern Ethiopia, state television reported today, a week after at least 256 people died in the East following torrential rains.
Rescuers were being airlifted into Ethiopia’s remote Omo Valley by helicopter after a river burst its banks, flooding two separate villages and also washing away food supplies and animals.
“The flood has claimed the lives of the residents … as well having caused damage to property,” said Sisay Tadesse, spokesman for the government’s emergency arm, the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency. He had no official confirmation of the number of people killed.
The flooding occurred after the Omo River, which is 470 miles long and empties into Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, burst its banks on Sunday.
Rescuers said they had no further details from the area, which is 435 miles south of the capital Addis Ababa, because it is so remote, with few roads or telephones.
Meanwhile police said the death toll from floods that hit the town of Dire Dawa, 310 miles east of Addis Ababa on August 6 had climbed to 256. Five people were also killed last Wednesday in northern Ethiopia after a river burst its banks due to heavy rains.
More than 15,000 people around the Horn of Africa nation have been left homeless because of flooding in the past eight days, according to government officials. Several hundred people are still missing, according to UN agencies in the country.
