Death toll in Sudan's floods rises to 125

The heavy rain and floods across large parts of Sudan since last month have killed 125 people, authorities said on Monday.

They said 119 people were injured. The death toll marks a rise of 13 over last week’s tally.

Sudan’s rainy season begins in June and peaks in August and September, when flooding is common. It is caused by the downpours and by overflow from the White and Blue Niles.

The Blue Nile, by far the more voluminous of the two, thunders into eastern Sudan from the Ethiopian Highlands. The White Nile enters Sudan from Uganda through South Sudan.

Sudan is not new to floods, an annual occurrence that varies in their magnitude and the destruction and death they causes.

One of the worst floods in living memory took place in 1988, when most of the sprawling city of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, was inundated after two days of heavy rain that followed a severe sandstorm.

The worst flooding on record took place in the 1940s.

The National Council for Civil Defence said in a statement on Monday that the flooding and rainfall destroyed 42,387 homes and partially damaged another 64,286.

Homes in the Al Jazeera, Sudan’s breadbasket south of Khartoum, suffered the worst damage of any single region, it said.

"I had grown 10 hectares with beans and cotton and they're all destroyed now," farmer Mubarak Al Gayed told The National from Al Jazeera.

"It's God's will, but I have been greatly hurt and I am in debt now. I don't know how I will provide for my family. But I am resigning myself to God's will."

There were 26 deaths in North Kordofan, the most in a single state, the council said.

It said the collapse of houses and drowning were the two leading causes of death in flood states.

Authorities are yet to announce the financial cost of the damage caused by the flooding, but they have spoken of the devastation of the agricultural season, with tens of thousands of hectares now under water.

But they said water had begun to recede in some areas, allowing farmers to plant crop seeds in the hope that they might salvage part of the season.