Mali capital Bamako hit by deadly floods 29 August 2013 Last updated at 15:07 At least 24 people have been killed in flash floods following torrential rain in Mali's capital, Bamako, the government says. Some minibus taxis full of passengers were swept away by the floods, a witness told the BBC. Other were killed when their mud houses collapsed. The BBC's Alou Diawara in Bamako says the city regularly experiences floods during the rainy season but this is the worst case for several years. Bamako is built on the banks of the huge River Niger and some of the houses which collapsed were said to have been illegally constructed on land reserved for drainage. Alassane Bocoum, the national director of social development, told the AFP news agency that thousands of people had been made homeless and around 100 houses had been destroyed.