اقرأ المحتوى باللغة العربية
Flooding continued to devastate areas across Yemen in August, with at least 51,000 households reportedly affected since April 2022. In mid-August, a spokesperson from the Houthi Supreme Council for Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced that in the areas under their jurisdiction, 91 people had been killed and close to twenty-five thousand families affected by flooding and heavy rains over the past few days. One hundred and forty houses were completely destroyed and about 1,360 had their roofs collapse. The total number of affected houses is around 5,700.
A large number of houses were either partially damaged or collapsed in different parts of Sana’a. In the Old City, heavy rain caused severe damage to the roofs of many houses, and residents feared their homes would collapse if the rains continued. On Tunis Street, in the south of Al-Thawra district in Amanat Al-‘Asimah, a house inhabited by four families collapsed. No injuries were reported, but the families were displaced and temporarily housed by the Houthi Zakat Authority. In Al-Sa’adi neighborhood in eastern Al-Safiyah district, heavy rains caused the partial collapse of a house inhabited by three tenant families.
In addition to the flooding, lightning strikes reportedly killed 13 and injured more than 25 in Houthi-held Hajjah and Amran governorates.
Communications in the Al-Hazm district of Al-Jawf governorate were cut off completely on August 2 due to heavy rains and flooding, with more than ten houses reported destroyed and a number of others damaged by the floodwaters. In neighboring Marib, the executive unit for internally displaced persons (IDP) camps requested urgent humanitarian assistance on August 6, after heavy rains and flooding battered 20 camps, affecting more than 16,000 families. It described the situation as catastrophic. According to the appeal, many housing units were completely destroyed. Heavy rain fell for 48 hours on August 5 and 6, causing significant agricultural damage in the area of Wadi Qarn in Al-Abdiyah district in southern Marib. At least six farms saw their wheat, qat, and vegetable crops destroyed. Five other farms in the area of Al-Mathooth and Al-Ashah in Al-Melahah sub-district were partially affected.
In Hudaydah, heavy rains fell on Hays district on August 9, with floodwaters descending from the hills toward Al-Khawkhah district, damaging 442 houses and killing two children in Al-Abeed neighborhood and a woman in Al-Babli IDP camp in the east of the district. The floods swept away large parts of Al-A’lili and Al-Jashah IDP camps. New construction of houses for influential military leaders in the Wadi area, in the natural path of floodwaters, has led to the water being redirected into residential areas not typically affected, resulting in significant damage and casualties. In the villages of Al-Mesbar and Al Qwaser, in eastern Al-Marawi’ah district, some 200 families were in need of urgent humanitarian assistance due to flood damage, with at least one woman killed and 10 families seeing their homes totally collapse. In Al-Qwaser, homes of IDPs from Al-Durayhimi built from wood and straw were swept away. Heavy rain also fell on the areas of Deer Awaidan and Deer al-Najary in eastern Al-Qanawis district, in the north of Hudaydah. In Deer Awaidan, 16 houses and four school rooms were heavily damaged, and 165 houses sustained partial damage. In Deer al-Najary, seven houses were heavily damaged and 200 more affected. The head of the Supreme Authority for Relief confirmed the death of a man who was swept away by the flooding.