Luanda (AFP) - For half an hour, the passenger boat sat stranded off the
coast of Angola's seaside capital Luanda.
Streams of rubbish clogged its engine as it attempted to
enter the port of a city sinking under the weight of several months of
uncollected trash that blocks traffic and exasperates residents.
"Look at this traffic jam, it's because of the bins
overflowing onto the road," said motorist Joao Mampuya, 52.
"The rubbish is taking up one of the two lanes and
it's been there so long."
The sprawling city, home to 6.5 million people, has
become an open-air dumping site.
Luanda has for years been a chaotic urban mess. It
figures among the world's most expensive cities and the overwhelming majority
of residents live in squalid shantytowns with no sanitation or electricity.
The company responsible for removing the trash says it
has not been paid by the local authorities, as the country -- the second
largest oil producer in Africa -- buckles under the collapse of the oil price.
Renowned independent journalist Rafael Marques de Morais
questioned the company's management.
"Did the money disappear? Did they hire incompetent
operators? Are the local governments not working? What about the central
government?" he wrote in a local independent paper.
Whatever the answer, the rubbish continues piling up all
over the city, filling up sidewalks outside both luxurious mansions and the
shacks of the slums.
During the rainy season, the streets become flooded,
forming stinking, black rivers that carry the decaying waste into stagnant ponds.
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