April 1879.
Western Great Lakes Province, Bujumbura City.
As the capital of Western Great Lakes Province, Bujumbura City had been built on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, and March and April marked the arrival of the long rainy season.
This year's rains had come with extraordinary ferocity. In ordinary years, Bujumbura City's annual rainfall ranged from 800 to 1,000 millimeters, but this year it had surpassed 2,000 millimeters, with some areas even exceeding 3,000. Most of the surging floodwaters had flowed along the river channels into Lake Tanganyika, yet in many areas, the rivers could not outrun the gathering rainwater, and vast stretches of farmland along both banks had been submerged.
This left Najin, the Provincial Governor of Western Great Lakes Province, deeply worried. Frowning, he said, "This year's rainfall in Western Great Lakes Province has been excessive. We have already received reports from many places. In the western regions near Hesse Province, rainfall even reached 130 millimeters in a single day at one point. Precipitation across most of the province has broken peak records. This year's provincial grain production plan will likely suffer severe damage."
Western Great Lakes Province consisted of all of former Burundi and Rwanda, as well as parts of Tanzania, Uganda, and Congo. Therefore, this flood disaster had affected an extensive area. The provincial capital, Bujumbura, had actually suffered relatively lightly, while other regions—particularly the rainier areas—had sustained major losses.
However, Bujumbura's "relatively light" damage was only in comparison to other parts of Western Great Lakes Province. Bujumbura itself lay in an area that normally received comparatively little rainfall. Now that even Bujumbura had been struck by disaster, the situation elsewhere was easy to imagine.
"Your Excellency, there is nothing we can do about it. Natural disasters cannot be controlled. We can only do our utmost