Devastating floods swept through multiple neighborhoods of Kinshasa in Congo over the weekend, leaving at least 19 people dead and triggering fresh concerns about the city’s infrastructure resilience, authorities confirmed Saturday.
Relentless rains from Friday into early Saturday morning inundated parts of the Congolese capital, unleashing landslides and collapsing homes across the western district of Ngaliema.
According to local mayor Fulgence Bolokome, the flooding claimed at least 17 lives and rendered major avenues impassable. He told Top Congo radio that two key city roads were completely cut off.
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In the southern neighborhood of Lemba, a wall collapse brought on by the torrential downpour killed two more people.
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“It was around 3 a.m. when we heard a loud noise. When we went outside, the neighbors’ wall had collapsed. The man and his wife both died, leaving behind five children who made it out unharmed,” local resident Clovis Kalenga recounted to The Associated Press.
The destruction extended beyond residential areas, damaging a police camp and a critical bridge, further complicating emergency response efforts.
This latest disaster comes just two months after similar rainfall in April caused flooding that killed at least 22 people in Kinshasa. That deluge severed access to over half the capital city and blocked routes to DR Congo’s main airport.
In the aftermath of the April catastrophe, President Félix Tshisekedi visited flood survivors and assured them of state support. “The republic will not abandon you,” he vowed, adding that a government crisis meeting had been convened at the time.
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The back-to-back incidents have intensified pressure on Congolese authorities to address longstanding infrastructure failures, especially as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in the region.
