Cyclone leaves about 40 dead in Yumbi, Bandundu Province

A cyclone that swept through an area surrounding the town of Yumbi in the northwest of Bandundu Province in western Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Sunday left about 40 people dead, according to reports by government officials and the UN Mission in the DRC.

Speaking on Radio Okapi, one nun reported that 15 people of her diocese had died. One doctor from the World Health Organisation reported from the city of Mbandaka, some 300 km northeast of Yumbi, that perhaps 45 people had died.

Although government authorities were reporting that many people had perished, they gave no precise figure. "Many homes have been destroyed, as have two Catholic schools, and numerous people remain buried in the rubble," Leonard Mashako Mamba, the minister of health, said.

He added that efforts were under way to get aid to the region. Yumbi, a town of about 30,000 inhabitants near the border of Equateur Province, is isolated and difficult to access, even though it lies along the River Congo. The nearest city equipped with even basic health facilities, Lokolela, is some 100 km away.