Surging waters burst through a dam, wiped out at least 20 villages and left at least 30 people dead but probably many more in eastern Sudan, the United Nations (UN) said on Monday, devastating a region already reeling from months of civil war.
Torrential rains caused floods that overwhelmed the Arbaat Dam on Sunday just 40 kilometres north of Port Sudan, the de facto national capital and base for the government, diplomats, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
“The area is unrecognisable. The electricity and water pipes are destroyed,” Omar Eissa Haroun, head of the water authority for Red Sea state, said in a WhatsApp message to staff.
One first responder said that between 150 and 200 people were missing.
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He said he had seen the bodies of gold miners and pieces of their equipment wrecked in the deluge, and likened the disaster to the devastation in the eastern Libyan city of Derna in September last year when storm waters burst dams, swept away buildings and killed thousands.
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On the road to Arbaat on Monday a Reuters reporter saw people burying a man and covering his grave with driftwood to try to prevent it from being washed away in mudslides.
The homes of about 50,000 people were impacted by the flooding, the UN said, citing local authorities, adding that the number only accounted for the area west of the dam as the area east was inaccessible.
The dam was the main source of water for Port Sudan, which is home to the country’s main Red Sea port and working airport, and receives most of the country’s much-needed aid deliveries.
“The city is threatened with thirst in the coming days,” the Sudanese Environmentalists Association said in a statement.
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Officials said the dam had started crumbling and silt had been building during days of heavy rain that had come much earlier than usual.
Sudan’s dams, roads and bridges were already in disrepair before the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Forces began in April 2023.
