Floods have killed at least 59 people so far this year in Ivory Coast Ivory
Floods in Ivory Coast have killed at least 59 people this year, according to a government spokesperson on Wednesday
DAKAR, Senegal -- Recent floods in Ivory Coast have killed at least 59 people, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Speaking after a Cabinet meeting, Amadou Coulibaly told reporters that “the council deplores the particularly high death toll of 59 this year.”
On Monday, floods and landslides triggered by days of torrential rain in the capital cities of Ghana and Ivory Coast left at least 24 people dead and more missing.
Coulibaly did not specify how many people had died as a result of the most recent flooding in Ivory Coast.
Entire buildings and roads were submerged in Accra, Ghana on Monday, cutting off access to several areas of the Ghanian capital and in the neighboring city of Tema.
In Ivory Coast, several days of rain brought flooding that left more than a dozen people dead, most of them in municipalities of Attécoubé and Yopougon in the capital, Abidjan, according to the Minister of National Cohesion Myss Belmonde Dogo.
Coulibaly urged residents to follow safety guidelines and leave areas designated as high risk by the government.
Deadly floods are common in parts of Africa, which is among the regions of the world most vulnerable to extreme weather events despite being responsible for a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Meteorological Organization.