The United Nations announced on Monday that raging waters in eastern Sudan had broken through a dam, destroyed at least 20 towns, killed at least 30 people, and most likely many more. The region was already suffering from months of civil conflict.
Just 40 km (25 miles) north of Port Sudan, the de facto national capital and home base for the government, embassies, relief organizations, and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, torrential rains and flooding on Sunday caused the Arbaat Dam to collapse.
“The area is unrecognisable. The electricity and water pipes are destroyed,” the head of Red Sea state’s water authority, Omar Eissa Haroun, stated in a WhatsApp message to employees.
He claimed to have witnessed gold miners’ corpses and bits of their equipment destroyed in the flood and compared the tragedy to the destruction caused by storm waters that broke dams in September of last year in the eastern Libyan city of Derna, sweeping away structures and killing thousands of people.
According to the UN, which cited local officials, the floods affected the homes of roughly 50,000 people. However, the statistic only included the area west of the dam because the area east was unreachable.
The majority of the nation’s desperately needed humanitarian supplies are sent to Port Sudan, which has the nation’s primary Red Sea port, operational airport, and water supply from the dam.
According to a statement from the Sudanese Environmentalists Association, “the city is threatened with thirst in the coming days.”
According to officials, after days of intense rain that arrived considerably earlier than expected, silt had been accumulating and the dam had begun to crumble.
Prior to the start of the conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Forces in April 2023, the country’s roads, bridges, and dams were in poor condition.
According to the government’s rainy season taskforce, the number of fatalities from the floods nationwide increased to 132 from 68 two weeks ago. The rains this year have caused at least 118,000 people to be relocated, according to United Nations agencies.
