Angolans face killer floods, death toll up to 81

LUANDA (AFP) - Relief and repair workers struggled to deal with havoc wreaked by torrential rain and flash floods in Angola, where the death toll around the seaside capital Luanda rose to 81.

"During search operations 10 more bodies were found in Luanda. The toll is now 81," fire service spokesman Faustino Sebastiao told AFP, adding that 18 people were known to be missing.

Fifty-nine of the deaths were in Cacuaco, one of the worst-hit areas just north of the capital, a local official said over radio.

Other parts of southern Africa have been hit by heavy downpours, including Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.

Central Luanda was cut off from Monday when three key bridges were damaged by heavy rain, but two of those have been repaired, linking the downtown area to the south and north east.

Officials said makeshift shelters had been set up to house 1,300 displaced families while residents of the sprawling but rundown city of 4.5 million struggled to cope with the rising waters.

Despite Angola's oil riches, Luanda has a skeletal infrastructure, which still bears the scars of a brutal 27-year civil war that ravaged the former Portuguese colony.

Telephone lines which were been badly hit were slowly being repaired and it had become possible to make international calls again, the head of the state-run telephone company said over radio.

Meanwhile, heart-rending scenes were witnessed in Cacuaco, home to some 900,000 people, which was still cut off from Luanda since a link bridge has been damaged.

A young man on the beach in Cacuaco wept copiously by the side of his wife's body, recovered by troops who are helping in rescue and search operations.

"At least I have seen her body," he said. "When the rains started lashing our area, we climbed on the roof. But the currents were too strong and our house collapsed. After that I lost sight of her."

Businesswomen and shoppers meanwhile traversed the river separating Cacuaco and Luanda on rocks they have put alongside the destroyed bridge.

On Thursday, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos visited Cacuaco and urge officials there to "get to work".

The capital was eerily still Friday with most vehicles off the roads.

"I walked four kilometres (three miles) before coming to a road where I could take a taxi," Marcos Costa said.

Luanda's governor Job Capapinha told an emergency meeting his three main priorities were providing emergency relief, restoring road links and ensuring proper sanitation to stem the tide of cholera, which has claimed more than 2,000 lives across the country since February last year.

The cholera epidemic broke out then in a sprawling Luanda slum and has been blamed on poor sanitation, an acute shortage of drinking water and inadequate infrastructure.

In March 2005, flooding in northern Angola left over 10,000 people without shelter.