Cape Verde floods kill at least eight people

At least eight people were killed after flooding on Cape Verde's Sao Vicente island overwhelmed emergency services and cut key roads, a regional civil protection councillor said on Tuesday.

On Monday morning torrential rains lashed the northern island in the Atlantic archipelago located off West Africa, swamping roads and sweeping away vehicles and people.

Municipal councillor Jose Carlos da Luz told a state broadcaster seven people had died in floods and one person was electrocuted, adding that three others were still missing.

In a report on Monday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies put the death toll at nine and said 1,500 people had been displaced on Sao Vicente.

'Rare situation'

Sao Vicente usually records 116 millimetres (mm) of rain in a year, according to Cape Verde's meteorology institute. But early on Monday, 193 mm fell in just five hours, according to Ester Brito, an executive at the institute.