Rescue workers in northern Yemen have recovered the bodies of 13 people who went missing after a flash flood inundated a village, authorities said Wednesday, as officials said 99 people have been killed since the start of heavy seasonal rains.Yemen's current monsoon season has been particularly deadly, with some experts saying the war-wrecked country is increasingly vulnerable to severe weather events caused by climate change.
The Al-Masirah TV channel run by the Houthi rebels who control the country's north said the 13 bodies were recovered in Melhan district of Al-Mahwit province. It said a child had been rescued but
20 other people were missing.Yemen was already the poorest Arab nation before civil war began in 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthis took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north, forcing the government to flee to the south and then to neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis in a statement on Wednesday said 86 people had lost their lives in flooding in Hodeida, Reema and Hajjah provinces since the monsoon season started in mid-July. The statement, issued after a meeting called by the prime minister to address the emergency response, said some 33,000 families had been affected by the floods.
Yemen's Red Crescent had projected that the country would see less precipitation overall this year but that flooding events would be more severe in the monsoon season. The rainy season begins in late March, and rains intensify in July through mid-August.
The Associated Press
Comment: Update August 30The New Arab
reports:
Floods that swept through a district in northern Yemen this week have killed at least 33 people and damaged more than 200 houses, a local official said.
Heavy rains that began on Tuesday as part of Yemen's monsoon season have caused major flooding and unleashed rockslides in the Melhan district of Al-Mahwit province.
The floods have killed 33 people, destroyed 28 houses and caused cracks in 200 others, Ali al-Zikam, secretary-general of the local council of Al-Mahwit province, said late on Wednesday on Facebook. The flooding also swept away five cars and left several people missing, he said.
Yemen's Red Crescent said on Thursday that 38 people are still missing, and that the agency is actively looking for them.
"The magnitude of the disaster in al-Mahwit is substantial," the agency said.
Three weeks prior:
Flooding in Yemen has left 30 people dead and hundreds displaced, official says
Comment: Update August 30
The New Arab reports: Three weeks prior: Flooding in Yemen has left 30 people dead and hundreds displaced, official says