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29-08-2024
SANA’A: At least 24 people are missing as Yemen has been lashed by torrential rains that triggered floods, exacerbating the spread of waterborne diseases, the authorities said.
The floods hit al-Mahwit, a province west of the capital, Sanaa, controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthi group, with landslides destroying seven homes in the Milhan district, police said on Wednesday.
The rising waters swept away cars, cut off roads, and led to the collapse of three dams in the province.
The Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV reported that a number of ambulances from neighboring areas in al-Mahwit, as well as the province of Hodeidah, were sent in to help with rescue efforts.
The mountains of western Yemen are prone to heavy seasonal rainfall. Since late July, flash flooding has killed 60 people and affected 268,000, according to the United Nations.
The western and central provinces have been warned of worse to come.
“In the coming months, increased rainfall is forecast, with the central highlands, Red Sea coastal areas and portions of the southern uplands expected to receive unprecedented levels in excess of 300mm (12 inches),” the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this week.
Cholera risk grows
At least one clinic in western Yemen has suspected cholera patients, with the rains and floods raising concerns of a major outbreak from contaminated water.
At the clinic in the city of Hais, women and children were attached to intravenous drips to combat diarrhoea, a symptom of what medics feared was cholera, media reported.
“The influx of patients has increased due to the floods and rains in Hais,” Bakil al-Hadrami, a doctor at the diarrhoea treatment centre, told the agency.
“The staff on duty are overburdened” and services could collapse “at any moment”, he added.
Abdullah al-Shmairi is one among many who fears his entire family may now have cholera after his son tested positive.
“Our whole household is now suffering from diarrhoea … but we were unable to get the treatments here and sometimes we have to bring them in from outside,” the bakery worker told media.
According to the UN, there are nearly 164,000 suspected cholera cases across Yemen, a figure that could climb to 250,000 in the coming weeks.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a recent report that the floods have increased the cholera risk.
The UN said earlier this month that $4.9m was needed for an emergency response to the flooding. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of seasonal rains in the Yemeni highlands.
A continuing decade of war has ravaged medical infrastructure and left millions dependent on international aid, with Yemen continuing to face one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The country had 2.5 million suspected cases during the last cholera outbreak from 2016 to 2022, according to the IOM.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued his latest climate SOS, calling on countries to “Save Our Seas” as he warned of a crisis of an “unimaginable scale” caused by greenhouse gases and rising sea levels.
Speaking at a gathering of Pacific Island regional leaders on Tuesday in Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa, he warned there was “no lifeboat to take us back to safety”. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
