Cape Verde has declared a state of emergency on the islands of S\u00e3o Vicente and Santo Ant\u00e3o, after deadly floods which killed at least nine people and forced 1,500 from their homes.<\/p>\n
The state of emergency activates crisis funds and urgent infrastructure repairs in the Atlantic Ocean islands off the west coast of Africa.<\/p>\n
Monday’s flash floods were triggered by Tropical Storm Erin, leading to 193mm (7.6in) of rain in just five hours, far above S\u00e3o Vicente’s annual average. <\/p>\n
Deputy Prime Minister Olavo Correia told the BBC the floods were “catastrophic”.<\/p>\n
Rescue teams are desperately searching for missing people, while roads, homes and vehicles have been severely damaged.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the heavy rains, Ester Brito from the country’s meteorology institute told Reuters news agency that the weather conditions were uncommon.<\/p>\n
“It is a rare situation because what was recorded is above our 30-year climatologist average.”<\/p>\n
Speaking to local media outlet Expresso das Ilhas, Ms Brito added that the country did not have the radar equipment required to forecast the extent of the rains. <\/p>\n
Describing the moment the floods hit, Interior Minister Paulo Rocha said the night was “marked by panic and despair”, Reuters reports. <\/p>\n
Alveno Yali, a community organiser in S\u00e3o Vicente, the worst affected Island, described the situation as “an incredible moment of heavy rains, strong winds, and flash floods, resulting in significant material losses”.<\/p>\n
The Cape Verdean diaspora especially in France, Luxembourg, Portugal, and the US have launched urgent crowdfunding campaigns. <\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of euros have already been raised to buy food, water, hygiene products, and emergency supplies.<\/p>\n
Andreia Levy, president of Hello Cabo Verde in France, told the BBC that the entire diaspora was mobilised and they planned to deliver aid directly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cape Verde has declared a state of emergency on the islands of S\u00e3o Vicente and Santo Ant\u00e3o, after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":142803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-142802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115022368786435502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}