The Egyptian government announced on Wednesday that it will not allow citizens to build houses in the places designated for flood spillways, following the death and injury of several citizens in Aswan as a result of the torrential rains that hit the governorate earlier this week.
During the weekly meeting of the cabinet, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly followed up on the latest developments of the situation in Aswan, noting that the houses that were affected by heavy rain were built of mud bricks, and located in the vicinity of flood spillways.
Madbouly said that the state, with all its bodies, dealt with this incident with the utmost speed, to mitigate its effects, in cooperation with civil society organizations.
The Prime Minister stressed that the state will not allow construction in places designated for flood spillways, pointing out that there are available housing units built in the Al-Allaqi area, and work will be done to raise their efficiency, so that they are ready to accommodate the people affected by the recent floods.
He also stressed the need to quickly transfer the affected people to these units, and work to support the Aswan governorate’s efforts to ensure that this is implemented.
Aswan was subjected to heavy thunderstorms in conjunction with the occurrence of severe lightning and thunder accompanied by snowfall and strong winds, which caused flooding of streets and power outages for homes, water stations and utilities, and the collapse of many houses.
The rains caused the uprooting and fall of large numbers of trees and electricity poles, and a number of electric power stations were out of service. Total of 503 citizens were injured by scorpion stings in the governorate, and they were transferred to hospitals for treatment.
