AfricaPress-Tanzania: FAMILIES of 540 people in Rukwa Region have been rendered homeless following heavy rains pounding the area and Lake Tanganyika banks being overwhelmed.
In the course, 108 homes at Kipwa village in Kalambo District and Kirando in Nkasi District have been abandoned after being submerged or washed ashore.
Commenting on the disaster at Kipwa village bordering Zambia, Kalambo District Commissioner (DC) Ms Julieth Binyura said the same scene was once witnessed during El Nino 23 years ago.
In the area, other badly affected infrastructures included a fresh fish auction market and a habour built at Kipili and Kirando areas in Nkasi District, which became submerged with water.
The disaster also stroke a modern Kasanga Fish market built at 802.4 m/- that was once idle for eight years, but revived and started operation recently last month.
Commenting further the DC said: “The whole village has perished, where 90 houses have either been submerged or washed away by flood reinforced from Lake Tanganyika covering everywhere. “F amilies of about 450 persons have been left homeless, except two public buildings which are a School and a Dispensary having been built in hilly areas.”
However, she said some of the victims especially women and children have been accommodated in classrooms and men moved to a different place with no shelters.
In addition, Ms Binyura said it was fortunate that no one died in the calamity that stroke during the day, noting: “Worse still their houses and properties have been badly destroyed, and the actual damage has not yet been assessed.
Reached for a comment, some of the interviewed victims at different points confided to the ‘Daily News’ that they are in dire need of humanitarian assistance including food, medicine and shelter.
“Indeed we have lost practically everything in terms of farms, residential and business houses. Our livestock, fishing boats and nets, food and clothes are gone,” said John Simulunga one of them.
In related incident, Kirando Ward Councillor, Mr Kakuli Seba told this paper recently over the phone that a Petrol Station and Nkondwe Beach Resort have been submerged by the flood in the area.
He further said that the flood also rendered 90 people homeless, adding: “A lot of residential houses were pulled down.”
