‘Like the end of the world’: People dig for relatives after floods in the Congo leave 400 dead

People are clawing through mud for missing family members in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after days of severe flooding left more than 400 people dead.

The villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi in the eastern DRC were devastated after torrential rains began on Thursday night, causing rivers to overflow and triggering landslides.

Around 3,000 families are now homeless after properties and farmlands were destroyed near Lake Kivu in the Kalehe territory.

“It’s like the end of the world,” Gentille Ndagijimana, 27, whose mother, father, and two sisters were killed, told AFP.

Ulrich Crepin Namfeibona, from Médecins Sans Frontières, said in a statement emailed to The Independent that around 150 people are wounded and “villages have been completely erased with the floods”.

“The catastrophe hit overnight and as Thursday was market day, the population in Bushushu was twice as large as usual,” the statement read.

MSF said it had evacuated 36 severely injured people by boat to hospitals.

The statement continued: “Shelter, food and other basic items are urgently needed for these communities who have lost everything. We are also seeing children who have lost their parents and need protection.”

The Congolese Red Cross does not have body bags, the BBC reported, and are being forced to leave those who have died wrapped in blankets. MSF said they were donating body bags, medicines and medical supplies to health structures in the area.

The area’s administrator told The Associated Press by phone that many bodies had been found floating in Lake Kivu. More than 300 victims had been buried in mass graves as of Sunday, local groups said.

Delphin Birimbi, a civic leader in Kalehe, also told AP he understood that thousands of people remain missing.

Some doctors arrived to treat the injured, but communities were pleading for more emergency assistance - which has been hampered by impassable roads.

MSF also warned that poor living and sanitary conditions in the aftermath of the floods create high risk of diseases, such skin infections and diarrhoeal diseases, especially close Lake Kivu where cholera is endemic.

The disaster comes just days after more than 130 people were killed in flooding in neighboring Rwanda and nearly 10,000 displaced.

Heavy rains have inflicted death and destruction across East Africa, including in parts of Uganda and Kenya.

On Saturday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres offered his condolences to the flood victims in both Rwanda and the DRC.

“This is yet another illustration of accelerating climate change and its disastrous impact on countries that have done nothing to contribute to global warming,” he said, according to Le Monde.

With reporting from The Associated Press. This article has been updated