At least 54 people have lost their lives in devastating floods in Chad’s northeastern Tibesti province, local authorities confirmed.
Heavy rains, which fell from Friday to Wednesday, triggered the floods that swept away thousands of shops and vehicles, according to Tibesti’s governor, Mahamat Tochi Chidi.
The region, usually dry with annual rainfall struggling to exceed 200mm (almost eight inches), experiences such extreme weather events every five to ten years, noted Idriss Abdallah Hassan, head of Chad’s national meteorological agency.
Most of the casualties and missing individuals are believed to be informal foreign gold miners working in the province, explained Brahim Edji Mahamat, leader of a local association.
The Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti region, which stretches across three northern provinces up to the Libyan border, is a vast, mountainous desert landscape often subjected to harsh environmental conditions.