Heavy rains flooded most parts of Tunisia forcing school and businesses to close down after what reports record as the heaviest downpour in 70 years.
Reports indicate that all four deaths occurred in Moknine in the Monastir governorate of the North African country, where “two people were swept away by floodwaters, while a woman drowned in her home,” said Khalil Mechri, a civil defence spokesman.
Abderazak Rahal, head of forecasting at the National Institute of Meteorology (INM), told journalists that some Tunisian regions had not seen so much rain since 1950.
“We have recorded exceptional amounts of rainfall for the month of January,” Rahal said, with the regions of Monastir, Nabeul and greater Tunis the hardest hit.
In neighbouring Algeria, several regions have also been hit by massive downpours and floods.
Algerian civil defence authorities said they had recovered the body of a man in his sixties who died in flooding in the northwestern area of Relizane.
