Reports say at least 17 have died, 170 people injured and 11,500 buildings have collapsed as heavy rains hit Northern Sudan.
“The number of victims has risen to 17,” said an employee at a hospital in Abu Hamad, a small town in Sudan’s River Nile state, some 400 kilometres (nearly 250 miles) north of Khartoum.
“The power is out in the city and people are spending the night out in the open, dreading more rainfall,” they said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
“Heavy rains caused most of the houses to collapse and all the shops in the market collapsed,” a witness in Abu Hamad told AFP by telephone.
AFP reports that flash floods led to the loss of lives in Port Sudan located on the Red Sea Coast.
Sudan’s federal emergency operations centre reported on Tuesday that since July 7, heavy rains and flooding have resulted in the deaths of over 30 individuals throughout the country.
The United Nations stated that rain and flooding have displaced more than 21,000 people since June, with a majority of them from areas already impacted by intense conflict.
Sudan is confronting what the United Nations has described as the most severe humanitarian crisis in recent history, as the conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shows no signs of subsiding.
More than 10 million people have been compelled to flee their homes, while the primary conflict zones are on the verge of a potential famine.