Rainy season: in Ivory Coast, at least 24 deaths in ten days of flooding

Published on June 24, 2024

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At least twenty-four people died in ten days in Ivory Coast in the metropolis of Abidjan after the start of the intense rainy season, has announced the National Office of Civil Protection (ONPC) in a press release. After “torrential rains from Thursday June 13 to Saturday June 22 on the District autonomous city of Abidjan”, the ONPC also reported flooded roads, and risks of buildings and homes collapsing. Two people are also carried disappeared “carried away by the waters”, specifies the ONPC.

Firefighters had already announced the death of eight people between Thursday June 13 and Saturday June 15, when precipitation four times higher than the seasonal normal fell on the Ivorian economic capital, causing spectacular rising water levels, landslides and of the house collapses.

In 24 hours, the Ivorian meteorological agency Sodexam recorded 214 mm of rain in the commune of Yopougon, and 205 in that of Cocody, either a quarter of the expected precipitation over the entire three months of the rainy season (May-June-July). The “normal” threshold defined being 50mm in 24 hours, had added the agency.

Torrential rains followed by devastating floods are recurrent in the Ivorian largest city, where nearly six million inhabitants live. The year Last year, at least 30 people died in incidents linked to heavy rains. Precarious constructions in poor and flood-prone areas are legion in this continuously growing metropolis, even if the government launched a vast sanitation policy this year, destroying many neighborhoods informal.