Sharjah24 - AFP: The government announced Wednesday that at least 127 people have perished after floods and landslides swamped many areas of Rwanda following severe rains, demolishing houses and blocking off routes.
Images posted online by the state broadcaster showed rivers of mud sweeping through the streets as residents scrambled for safety, some wading through the water or clambering over the corrugated iron roofs of collapsed houses.
The small country in the Great Lakes region of Africa has been hit by similar disasters in the past but this appears to be the deadliest in several years.
Rwanda's government said it was setting up shelters for the homeless in schools and other buildings, without giving a number for those displaced.
"Rescue interventions are ongoing in the most affected districts... in order to secure endangered citizens," President Paul Kagame's office said in a statement announcing that 127 people had lost their lives so far.
"My deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of the landslides and floods that occurred last night in the Western, Northern and Southern Provinces," Kagame said in a separate statement on Twitter.
"We are doing everything within our means to address this difficult situation."
The state-run Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA) said most of the deaths occurred in Western Province which borders Lake Kivu.
"I was at home with my children but we escaped successfully before it collapsed," said Jane Munyemana, a resident in the town of Rubavu in Western Province.
"We plan to remove the floodwaters and sleep in it tonight but we are worried that it may rain again and destroy whatever is remaining," she told AFP.
In the first four months of 2018, more than 200 people died in Rwanda because of floods and landslides.
Other parts of East Africa have also been battered by rains and flooding in recent days, including Uganda where six people have been reported dead.
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