Heavy rains kill 12 in Rwanda on Christmas

BY OUR REPORTER

At least 12 people are confirmed dead following a downpour that swept the country on Wednesday night, officials have said on Thursday.  

“It’s unfortunate that we confirm that 12 people have died due to heavy rains that hit different parts of our country on Christmas night,” said Anastase Shyaka the Minister of Local Government at a presser in the capital Kigali.

Shyaka said that the rains wreaked some 113 houses, 49 hectares of farmland and infrastructures including roads.

The rains that took about five hours before they ceased also paralyzed transport services with cars trapped in floods.     

Early December, the government of Rwanda evacuated amid criticism at least 6,000 people that were residing in wetlands and high risk residence. The very places were ravaged by floods and several houses destroyed.

He called upon Rwandan citizens residing in high risk zones and wetlands to vacate from those areas to avoid flooding and landslides disasters caused by heavy rains.

He also said the death toll could have been more if people residing in wetlands in Kigali had not been evacuated by the government recently.

For the past three weeks in December, about 6,000 Rwandan households residing in high risk zones and wetlands in different parts of Rwanda were evacuated and relocated to safe areas, he added.

Recently, Claver Gatete the Infrastructure Minister unveiled that heavy rains had already caused great loss to the economy this year, including wreaking 22 national roads and 42 district roads.