Cold weather kills 17

A cold spell accompanied by heavy rain last week in northern Senegal killed 17 people and an unknown number of livestock, an official from the Senegalese civil defence ministry told IRIN on Tuesday. "There was a cold snap for two or three days when the temperature dropped from 40 degrees (centigrade) to 16 degrees. A lot of rain, around 115 mm, also fell over a couple of days last week," Captain Moro Sow, operations officer in the Civil Defence Ministry, said. The region of Podor in northern Senegal was worst affected by the bad weather, he said, adding that some farmland in the area was submerged by water. The 17 deaths, including two children, were caused by the sudden drop in temperature and not by the floods, Sow said. "People are not used to cold weather and they were not prepared for it," he said. A meeting on Monday, organised by the prefect in Podor, drew up a list of emergency needs for the local population which included blankets, mattresses, food for livestock and petrol. Representatives from the ministries of the interior, family and social affairs, travelled to the region on Tuesday to see how best they could assist the local population, Sow said.