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Djibouti, April 16, 2004 (Sapa-AFP) – Torrential rains that caused flooding in the tiny north-east African state of Djibouti early in the week are now known to have killed at least 52 people, but officials warned that the final toll could be higher.
An official toll announced on Thursday by the interior ministry said that 49 people had died, most of them in the capital Djibouti-ville, but later in the day a hospital official said that three other people, all children, had been found dead.
All the dead were drowned in the flooding caused by the rainstorms, the worst seen in Djibouti since 1994.
Aden Dileita, the head of the main Djibouti hospital, said the toll was likely to rise as the waters went down and revealed new bodies.
He also expressed fears that the flooding could lead to outbreaks of cholera or malaria. The corpses of cattle and other animals left behind by the floods were decomposing, bringing a major risk of disease, he said.
The storm hit in the early hours of Tuesday, causing widespread flooding both in Djibouti-ville and in the southern district of Dikhil.
A spokesperson for the French army, which maintains a 2 700 strong force in Djibouti, said there were no westerners among the dead.
Djibouti is a former French colony strategically located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea opposite Yemen. It has a population of about 630 000.
The last time that such heavy flooding hit Djibouti was in November 1994, when heavy rains killed at least a hundred people.
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