- Snapped high-voltage power cable killed 26 persons in Kinshasa, Congo
- Power cable snap was due to rainy storms
No less than 26 persons died on Wednesday when a high-voltage cable fell into a flooded canal at a market in the southern outskirts of the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congo’s government spokesman, Patrick Muyaya, said the victims included 24 women and two men, with two others seriously injured. “The cable snapped, and the live end of it fell into a ditch filled with water after morning rain,” He stated.
Muyaya said the government would hold a crisis meeting and tweeted that the government would pay for the funerals of the dead and the care of those who were injured.
“Women and men lost their lives by electrocution in a terrible accident at the Matadi-Kibala market following the severing of a phase conductor caused by bad weather,” Prime Minister Sama Lukonde said on Twitter.
One market trader, Christelle Zindo, told the AFP news agency that the water regularly overflowed on the market because the canal was blocked, complaining of a “total indifference” by authorities. The national electricity company, SNEL, offered its condolences to the families.