AIRLINK 80.60 Increased By ▲ 1.19 (1.5%)
BOP 5.26 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-1.31%)
CNERGY 4.52 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (3.2%)
DFML 34.50 Increased By ▲ 1.31 (3.95%)
DGKC 78.90 Increased By ▲ 2.03 (2.64%)
FCCL 20.85 Increased By ▲ 0.32 (1.56%)
FFBL 33.78 Increased By ▲ 2.38 (7.58%)
FFL 9.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.15 (-1.52%)
GGL 10.11 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-1.37%)
HBL 117.85 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.07%)
HUBC 137.80 Increased By ▲ 3.70 (2.76%)
HUMNL 7.05 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.71%)
KEL 4.59 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-1.71%)
KOSM 4.56 Decreased By ▼ -0.18 (-3.8%)
MLCF 37.80 Increased By ▲ 0.36 (0.96%)
OGDC 137.20 Increased By ▲ 0.50 (0.37%)
PAEL 22.80 Decreased By ▼ -0.35 (-1.51%)
PIAA 26.57 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.08%)
PIBTL 6.76 Decreased By ▼ -0.24 (-3.43%)
PPL 114.30 Increased By ▲ 0.55 (0.48%)
PRL 27.33 Decreased By ▼ -0.19 (-0.69%)
PTC 14.59 Decreased By ▼ -0.16 (-1.08%)
SEARL 57.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.20 (-0.35%)
SNGP 66.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.75 (-1.11%)
SSGC 11.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-0.81%)
TELE 9.11 Decreased By ▼ -0.12 (-1.3%)
TPLP 11.46 Decreased By ▼ -0.10 (-0.87%)
TRG 70.23 Decreased By ▼ -1.87 (-2.59%)
UNITY 25.20 Increased By ▲ 0.38 (1.53%)
WTL 1.33 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-5%)
BR100 7,626 Increased By 100.3 (1.33%)
BR30 24,814 Increased By 164.5 (0.67%)
KSE100 72,743 Increased By 771.4 (1.07%)
KSE30 24,034 Increased By 284.8 (1.2%)

NABEUL: Flash floods in Tunisia's Cap Bon peninsula have killed at least four people, authorities said Sunday, as surging waters caused by heavy rains carried away homes, cars and chunks of road.

Among the four dead were two sisters, swept away as they left work at a factory in Bou Argoub, 45 kilometres southeast of the capital, the interior ministry said.

A 60-year-old man drowned near the town of Takilsa and another man was found dead in Bir Bouregba, close to the town of Hammamet, ministry spokesman Sofiene Zaag told AFP.

Saturday's storm caused water levels in some areas to rise as much as 1.7 metres (5.6 feet), as bridges and roads were damaged in record rains that dropped the equivalent of nearly six months of average precipitation.

"It was raining since noon and (in the afternoon) it became torrential. The water flooded over the bridge and onto the road," Moncef Barouni, a resident in the coastal town of Nabeul, told AFP.

In just minutes, "the water swept away the fence, then the boiler room, the summer kitchen and a part of the house," he said.

"I was scared for my life."

The storm dumped 200 millimetres (7.9 inches) of rain on Nabeul and up to 225 millimetres in the city of Beni Khalled, in the peninsula's centre, according to Tunisia's National Institute of Meteorology.

It was the heaviest rainfall since the institute began keeping a record in 1995, the institute said, adding that it had issued a warning about the storms on Friday.

Videos posted to social networks showed surging waters carrying cars and pieces of road in the north of the peninsula.

Tunisian authorities said they had dispatched police, army and rescue teams to the region on Saturday afternoon, in addition to mobilising ambulances and two helicopters.

Authorities also took preventative measures in the Sahel region further south in anticipation of further rains, but by Sunday they appeared to have subsided.

The sun was out Sunday and receding water levels meant most of the area's roads were passable by car, Zaag said, although the region's telephone networks were still largely out of service.

Severe thunderstorms have hit the North African country since the middle of last week, flooding roads and damaging property, sparking anger against the authorities for allegedly failing to maintain drainage systems.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Press), 2018
 

 

 

Comments

Comments are closed.