HONIARA: Flash flooding killed at least six people and left 10,500 homeless in the Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara on Friday, with another 30 missing and the death toll set to rise, officials said.
The government declared a state of emergency after the city’s main river, the Matanikau, burst its banks late on Thursday, sweeping away entire communities, bringing down bridges and inundating the downtown area.
“This is the worst disaster the nation has seen,” the Solomons Star newspaper said.
Save the Children’s Solomons development programme director Rudaba Khondker described the situation as “dire”.
“This level of rain has never been experienced before in Guadalcanal (the island where Honiara is located),” she told AFP.
Khondker said 16 evacuation centres had been set up in local schools to provide shelter for 10,500 homeless people, a huge proportion of the population in a city of only 70,000.
“It’s a logistical challenge,” she said, adding that roads had been cut and communications were patchy. “The east side (of the city) is tough to reach and in the west side we’re still carrying out assessments.”
Police, Muslim youth clash in Mombasa
MOMBASA, Kenya: Kenyan police and Muslim youths clashed in Mombasa following Friday prayers, witnesses said, days after a firebrand Islamist cleric was gunned down in the port city.
Security was tight and tensions high around the Musa mosque, seen by Kenyan authorities as a terrorist propaganda hub and recruiting ground for jihadists.
A prominent cleric closely associated with the mosque, Abubaker Shariff Ahmed better known as Makaburi, was shot dead in Mombasa on Tuesday.
Makaburi was a vocal supporter of Al Qaeda and Somalia’s Shebab rebels and prior to his death had accused Kenyan security forces of seeking to kill him.
After Friday’s prayers, worshippers and police fought brief running battles including stone-throwing and the use of tear gas.
Agencies
