Botswana flash floods kill seven, displace thousands

GABARONE (Reuters) - Flash floods across Botswana have killed seven people including three children and uprooted thousands after days of heavy rains, President Duma Boko said on Saturday.

Authorities have temporarily shut schools and blocked roads following more than a week of downpours.

"We will continue to work in the short term to mitigate further losses," Boko said in a televised address as over 1,700 people were evacuated from flood-stricken areas.

In the capital Gabarone, where the local dam was overflowing, cars were washed away and properties waterlogged as emergency workers braced for more rain in coming days.

Disaster management officials suggested that inadequate drainage in urban areas may have contributed to water building up in some of the worst hit low-lying areas.

"We must relook at our infrastructure planning to determine that indeed our infrastructure on a national level can handle droughts as well as floods," Boko said.

(Reporting by Brian Benza; Editing by Wendell Roelf)

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