Five killed in torrential Tunisia rains

Flash floods in Tunisia's Cap Bon peninsula have killed at least five people, authorities said Sunday, as surging waters caused by heavy rains carried away homes, cars and chunks of road.

Saturday's storm caused water levels in some areas to rise as much as 1.7 metres (5.6 feet), as bridges and roads were damaged in record rains that dropped the equivalent of nearly six months of average precipitation.

In most places, water levels had begun falling quickly, the interior ministry said, adding however that the death toll had risen to five after a teenager was electrocuted Sunday in Bou Argoub, 45 kilometres (28 miles) southeast of Algiers.

Ministry spokesman Sofiene Zaag also said a 60-year-old man had drowned near the town of Takilsa and another man was found dead in Bir Bouregba, close to the town of Hammamet.

Two sisters were swept away as they left work at a factory in Bou Argoub, the ministry said.

"They were trying to cross rising wadi waters to get back home," Amir, a resident of the area, told AFP.

Wadis are river beds that are usually dry but are meant to carry away seasonal rains.

"The wadis have been abandoned for decades -- there is no maintenance", he said, adding that the river beds are filled with trees, garbage and rubble.

A man in another area agreed that blocked wadis had exacerbated the flooding.

"It was raining since noon and (in the afternoon) it became torrential", said Moncef Barouni, a resident of the coastal town of Nabeul.

"The wadi in front of our house was blocked by trees and the water flooded over the bridge and onto the road," he told AFP.

In just minutes, "the water swept away the fence, then the boiler room, the summer kitchen and a part of the house," he said. "I was scared for my life."