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  • GHANA: Floods in northern and eastern Ghana raise fears of water-borne diseases

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GHANA: Floods in northern and eastern Ghana raise fears of water-borne diseases

Floods from torrential rains have caused the deaths of at least 80 people, displaced thousands, and devastated crops and livestock across sub-Saharan Africa, officials said on Friday (September 14). Often prone to drought, East and West Africa also frequently endure floods in August and September, the end of the rainy season. In the worst-hit nations in East Africa, at least 63 people died in Ethiopia, 15 in Rwanda and nine in Uganda, governments and aid agencies said. Hailstorms and landslides have compounded the problems, while thousands of families have fled to flimsy shelters, the new school term has been severely disrupted, and the risk of water-borne diseases such as cholera and malaria was growing. The United Nations said severe floods across West Africa had affected 500,000 people in 12 countries, wiping out crops and homes there as well. Outbreaks of water-borne diseases and swarms of crop-eating locusts are feared, the latter in both Mali and Niger, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. "Conditions are ripe for an infestation," OCHA spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told a news briefing in Geneva. The affected countries are Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. About half of those affected live in Ghana, OCHA said. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said earlier this month at least 87 people had been killed in flooding in West Africa, mostly in Nigeria, in the past two months.

ITN Source | September 16, 2007Watch more videos from ITN Source

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