Sud-Kivu: the toll from the landslide in Fizi rises to 110 dead (Territorial Administrator)

Uvira, May 12^th, 2025 (CPA) – The provisional toll of people missing in a landslide caused by torrential rain in the village of Kasaba in Fizi ( Sud-Kivu), in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has risen from 62 to 110 dead, according to a statement from the territorial administration received on Monday by CPA. ‘To date, we have a provisional toll of one hundred and ten (110) dead, with several material damages and houses destroyed’, has declared Samy Kalondji, administrator of the Fizi territory. In relation to this calamity, the administrator of Fizi has alerted all the authorities, both national and provincial, to take useful measures. ‘’We, as Congolese civil society, are saddened and shocked by the scale of the damage recorded in this village on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, near Yangu. Among the hundreds of dead, only a dozen or so has already been recovered from the rubble since the announcement of the disaster at around 5 a.m. on May 9th, when the Kasaba river has overflowed ’, has indicated for his part Dominique Asakya, president of the New Congolese Civil Society (NSCC) in this area. He has made the point that the Kasaba floods have just occurred in a context of war imposed on DRC, in addition to insecurity. In view of this tragedy, the administrator of the Uvira territory, Jean de Dieu Mabiswa, has sent his colleague in the Fizi territory a message of compassion for the loss of all these souls. ‘It is with bitterness and a sorrowful heart that I have learned of the death of 110 people and the disappearance of many inhabitants of the territory under your responsibility, notably in the village of Kasaba in the Babungwe Sud grouping in the Ngandja sector, following a landslide caused by torrential rains that fell without interruption in the area’, he has written. In May 2024, the rising waters of Lake Tanganyika, which DRC shares with Burundi and Tanzania, had similarly caused the Mulongwe, Kalimabenge and Kavinvira rivers to overflow, again in the same territory, while extending into the neighbouring province of Tanganyika, particularly in the territories of Moba, Manono, Kongolo and the town of Kalemie. In the month of July of the same year, the flood waters of this lake had completely engulfed the road linking the town of Uvira to the locality of Salamabila, in the province of Maniema, according to local sources who reported the death of a lorry driver.