At least 24 people have died while another 17 are missing in the west Yemen because of of floods which were caused by torrential rains, the Fund announced yesterday Thursday United Nations for Population (UNFPA), as search and rescue operations are underway.

Heavy rains for a week in western Yemen have caused widespread damage in a poor area of ​​the country and in neighboring Hodeidah province on the Red Sea.

Landslides destroyed houses and shops in the Melhan district of Al Mahwayt province on Tuesday night, burying residents.

The UNFPA office in Yemen reported 24 dead and 17 injured via X after “catastrophic flooding caused by rains and the breaking of three dams” in the Houthi-held area.

According to the UN agency, 1,020 families were affected and dozens of houses were destroyed.

An earlier count, broadcast by the Houthi Al Masira TV network, said 16 were killed in Al Mahwayt province, west of the capital Sanaa.

“The roads that have been cut off due to the floods have prevented the movement of search and rescue teams (…) but the operations (which started yesterday Wednesday) are continuing,” the Houthi deputy prime minister, Mohammed al-Muftah, told Al-Masira.

The television network did not report a dam break.

In the village of Hays, Ahmed Suliman does not hide his despair: he has lost everything. “The floods took our house, our animals, all our goods, the blankets, everything we had at home.”

The mountains of western Yemen experience heavy rains every year.

Since late July, torrential rains have killed about sixty civilians and affected 268,000 in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest state, according to the United Nations.

New heavy rains are expected in the coming months in the central and western part of the country.

“The highlands in the central part of the country, coastal zones on the Red Sea and parts of the southern highlands are expected to record unprecedented levels of (rain) of more than 300 millimeters” of water, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday.

The UN said earlier this month that $4.9 million was needed to boost the response to the extreme weather emergency in Yemen, which has been wracked by civil war for more than a decade.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of seasonal rains in Yemen’s highlands, much of which is controlled by the Houthis.

The rebel government, in power in the capital and most of the northern part of the territory, announced last Wednesday that it had formed a committee to manage the crisis and had begun distributing food and taking measures to house families affected by the floods. .