At Least 100,000 Displaced In Burkina Faso By Heaviest Rainfalls In 90 Years - Reuters

[hatrack]

DAKAR - The heaviest rainfall in 90 years in the African state of Burkina Faso has triggered heavy flooding and forced thousands of people to flee their homes, the government said Wednesday. "We have been able to find shelter for about 110,000 people but there are others who have taken refuge with their neighbors," Prime Minister Tertius Zongo told reporters after an emergency cabinet meeting. "There are at least 150,000 people to cater for."

Aid groups in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou, which has a population of about 1 million, said the flood water had smashed bridges and roads and could hamper their work. "Bridges and dams have been destroyed, the main hospital in Ouagadougou which is close to a dam was inundated and some patients including about 60 children were evacuated," Rosine Jourdain of the Belgian Red Cross in Burkina Faso told Reuters by telephone.

"An electrical plant was also destroyed so I think we are going to have some power supply problems."

In neighboring Niger, hundreds of families have also been made homeless by flooding in the uranium-rich region of Agadez when their homes collapsed after the river Kora burst and flooded the town of Agadez which has a population of about 80,000.

EDIT

http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/54498

[kestrel91316]

1. If they could ship that water off to Australia they could make a pile of money.

Who says climate change is a bad thing???

:sarcasm: