ONE hundred and fifteen people have been displaced from their villages in Mpulungu after floods along the Lake Tanganyika shores swept away their homes.

And Government has released tents for 10 of the most affected families in Kapembwa area of Mpulungu.

District Commissioner Willie Simfukwe confirmed the development in an interview in Mpulungu yesterday.

Mr Simfukwe said the people were displaced last week when water levels in the lake rose and washed away huts at a fishing camp.

He said 10 families were currently living at Kapembwa Basic School and that the school had since been closed.

Mr Simfukwe said the Government had identified a safer place at which the tents would be erected, but affected families would not be allowed to construct houses until the area was approved.

He said the Government was waiting for the provincial resettlement officer to assess the area and establish whether the place was safe for residents to construct permanent houses.

Meanwhile, the Government has scaled down the search for the seven people who were buried under rocks following a landslide which hit Kalala area in Mpulungu recently because it had proved to be costly.

Mr Simfukwe said there was a possibility that the bodies were swept away by water into the lake and not buried under the rubble.

And a family in Tundula area in Mumena's chiefdom in Solwezi escaped death after the house they were sleeping in at night collapsed on them due a heavy downpour.

A road to Senior Chief Ndungu's palace in Zambezi is under water and the Mize capital can only be accessed using speedboats and canoes, while a school in Solwezi has remained closed this year after a heavy downpour destroyed infrastructure.

Solwezi District Commissioner, Fubisha Fulayi said after a tour of Tundula, where many houses collapsed, that a family recently escaped death after their house gave in to rain at night.

He said Mapande Basic School in Solwezi East Constituency, near the Democratic Republic of Congo, had failed to open this year after school infrastructure was damaged during the last holiday.

Mr Fulayi, who toured the area with the disaster management and mitigation unit officers and education authorities, said the four teachers had abandoned the school after their houses collapsed.

And with the bridge on Kafue River having collapsed, coupled with the bad state of the road, Mapande can only been accessed by the rest of Solwezi through Chililabombwe.

Mr Fulayi, who is chairperson of the district disaster management team, said while the dry spell had eased the disaster burden, about 1,000 people were in need of aid in the form of tents, chlorine and mosquito nets.