Seventeen people died in the Tabora area of Central Tanzania on Christmas Eve when their flat-roofed houses collapsed after heavy rains, Tanzanian radio reported on Saturday.

A local official said over 800 houses were destroyed by the rain, and over 3,000 people affected by the disaster.

About 100 vehicles were stuck in mud, and the Igunga-Tabora road was closed after it was destroyed by the continuing rains, the official said.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
 

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