Extreme rains kill about 200 in the Sahel and central Africa

A man with water around his waist carries a baby on his shoulders.

A few meters behind, two children climb on a window sill to get out of a house in which all the furniture floats.

On the next street, collapsed walls, dead lambs and a woman crying because she has lost everything.

"Every year the same story, we are desperate," says baker Makhtar Ndiaye.

This is Keur Massar, a populous neighborhood on the outskirts of Dakar, a few days ago.

But it also happens in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Nigeria, Chad and Sudan.

The floods this year have caused some 200 deaths and nearly a million affected in the Sahel and central Africa, which each summer become a death trap due to climate change, rural exodus and construction without any type of regulation.

Africa's storms have no name.

They are not called Mitch, Katrina or Sally and they are not often talked about in the media.

And yet each rainy season kills dozens and destroys thousands of homes.

This year they are being especially intense.

With more than a hundred dead and 550,000 affected, Sudan declared a state of emergency two weeks ago for three months.

The Nile River has risen beyond its memory in 100 years and threatens to flood the ancient city of Bajrawiya, half a kilometer from the riverbed.

In Niger, the rain has caused 71 deaths and 300,000 accidents, many of them on the outskirts of Niamey, the capital, and on the banks of a runaway Niger river.

In Burkina Faso, with 13 dead since the beginning of September, the Government has declared a state of natural disaster.

Unconscionable urban growth

"In recent years there has been a recurrent increase in the number of people affected by floods," says Jocelyn Lance, an expert in risk reduction, water and sanitation at the European Agency for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection in West Africa, "and This is related to a greater intensity of rain events, but above all with population movements towards urban areas, where they settle in places of risk and build in an anarchic way ”.

In the opinion of this expert, there is an enormous deficit in territorial planning and even if governments introduce some kind of improvement in the matter, the reality surpasses them.

"Urban growth is faster and Dakar is the perfect example," he adds.

During the first weekend of September, the Senegalese capital experienced a heavy episode of rainfall.

According to the Minister of Sanitation, Serigne Mbaye Thiam, just a few hours on Saturday fell as much water in Dakar as in an entire

rainy season

, about 124 liters per square meter.

As on previous occasions, it was the inhabitants of the suburbs who took the worst part.

Neighborhoods like Keur Massar, Pikine or Camberene saw their streets turn into rivers.

As soon as the rain passed, spontaneous protests erupted in which President Macky Sall became the target of criticism.

“Where is it while our houses are sinking?

What has happened to the promised investment? ”Asked an Internet user on Thursday.

“I express my solidarity with all those who have suffered losses during the heavy rains over the weekend.

I have asked the Interior Minister to implement the Orsec plan, ”Sall replied on his Twitter account.

This initiative enables the mobilization of financial and material resources in case of emergency, but the complaints of citizens go much further.

“When he came to power in 2012 he promised to end the ordeal of the floods.

And he hasn't done anything, ”says Mbaye Lo, a resident of Pikine.

Because it is not just the rainy season.

Outlying districts like Guinaw Rail Nord spend the whole year pumping water and hundreds of houses have been lost forever.

Former prime minister and now opponent Abdoul Mbaye assures that the 1,145 million euros planned for the decade 2012-2022 were never invested.

The Government is hiding in the intensity of the rains due to climate change.

The Senegalese head of state asked citizens to avoid building on water courses to reduce the impact of these episodes.

Last April, the regional agency Agrhymet specialized in the measurement of rainfall in the Sahel had already warned about a wet season with “above average” rainfall.

But is it climate change?

For meteorologist Christopher Taylor of the UK Center for Ecology and Hydrology, there is no doubt.

In 2017 he published a study in the journal

in which he pointed to global warming as responsible for the tripling of "extreme storms" in the Sahel in the last 35 years.

Hell for farmers too.

However, the rains alone do not cause the devastating damage.

Alexandre Santini, a hydraulic engineer who has been working in Senegal for years, assures that from the 1970s to 2000 there was a prolonged cycle of droughts, which caused large floodplains to dry out.

“In a continent with the demographic potential of Africa, which will double its population in 2050, many people moved from the countryside to the city and settled in the peripheries, where they could.

At first in safe places, but later in the lower parts, all in a very anarchic way, without rainwater evacuation networks ”, he explains.

But not everything can be attributed to the old.

The new highway from Dakar to the Pink Lake along the coast was completely flooded a week ago.

"There's a lot of improvisation," adds Santini, who nevertheless shows a certain optimism.

“I perceive an awareness.

There are many organizations that mobilize funds to combat the consequences of climate change and technical modeling tools and planning documents are being developed that can help, ”he explains.