Heavy Rains Kill Nine In War-torn Sudan

Heavy rains have triggered building collapses that have killed nine people in northern Sudan, as the country reels from almost 16 months of fighting between rival security forces, a medic told AFP Tuesday

Khartoum, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Aug, 2024) Heavy rains have triggered building collapses that have killed nine people in northern Sudan, as the country reels from almost 16 months of fighting between rival security forces, a medic told AFP Tuesday.

"Nine people have died as a result of their houses collapsing," said an employee at a hospital in Abu Hamad, a small town in Sudan's Nile state, some 400 kilometres (nearly 250 miles) north of Khartoum.

"Many injured people continue to arrive at the hospital", the source added.

Each year in August, peak flow on the Nile is accompanied by heavy rains, destroying homes, wrecking infrastructure and claiming lives, both directly and indirectly through water-borne diseases.

The impact is expected to be worse this year after more than twelve months of fighting that has pushed millions of displaced people into flood zones.

"Heavy rains caused most of the houses to collapse and all the shops in the market collapsed," a witness in Abu Hamad told AFP by telephone.

Last week, a flash flood caused the deaths of five people in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast.