Havoc as Congo overflows

Kinshasa – Burst riverbanks are causing turmoil in DR Congo’s capital Kinshasa with dark and foul-smelling water pouring into homes across working-class neighbourhoods.

The impoverished metropolis of some 15 million people sits on the Congo River – the second-largest in Africa after the Nile – which has swollen to near-record levels in the past few weeks.

Kinshasa is criss-crossed by small rivers and waterways which often double as open sewers. Many have now overflowed.

In Pompage district, a bridge over one such small river has been submerged, creating a stinking and stagnant pool in the middle of a residential district.

“The river is backing up,” said Therese Matete, a seller of dried fish, pointing to a body of water covered with plastic bottles.

In lieu of the bridge, residents now use a makeshift canoe pushed by young men waist-deep in the water.

Niclette Luzolo, 32, a hairdresser in Pompage, said her house was flooded.

“Everything’s destroyed, we’ve got nothing left. I’m sleeping in church with my four children and the mosquitoes are biting us,” she said.

Flooding is common in Kinshasa, but locals say this year is the worst.

In late December, the agency that manages the DRC’s waterways, the RVF, warned of “exceptional flooding” along the Congo River and its tributaries.

Measurements taken in Kinshasa showed that the river had risen 5.94 metres, close to the high-water mark of 6.26 metres during record flooding in 1961.

The Congo River basin floods every year between December and mid-January, said RVF director Daniel Lwaboshi.

Water levels normally rise about five metres, he said, but the current levels have been high enough to submerge most of the quays and ports along the river.

This prevents boats from docking and goods from moving between Kinshasa and the interior of the country, which is mostly only accessible by river or air.

Lwaboshi said heavier downpours, linked to climate change, in part led to the exceptionally high river.

But he said that deforestation also hardens the earth and makes it less absorbent of water. –