According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), flash flooding has decimated 20 villages and damaged a further 50, severely affecting 50,000 people.
The villages of Khor-Baraka and Tukar have been particularly hard hits, with residents forced to flee for safety.
The collapse of the dam has also caused widespread destruction, with industrial trucks and vehicles buried in mud and debris.
Footage shows the devastating aftermath, with some vehicles almost unrecognizable on the silty riverbank.
Initial reports suggest that torrential rains caused the dam to breach, resulting in the reservoir behind it being fully drained.
The dam facility supplies fresh water to Port Sudan, the country’s fifth largest city and de facto national capital and base for the government, diplomats, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, which is about 40 (25 miles) to the southeast.
“The area is unrecognisable. The electricity and water pipes are destroyed,” Omar Eissa Haroun, head of the water authority for the Red Sea state.
The damage is expected to worsen the humanitarian situation in the Red Sea State, which is already on the brink of collapse and starvation following more than a year of civil war.
“The city is threatened with thirst in the coming days,” the Sudanese Environmentalists Association said in a statement.
In response to the disaster, Sudan’s Federal Minister of Health, Dr. Haitham Muhammad Ibrahim, has promised emergency humanitarian assistance, including basic medicines and medical personnel.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) chief and head of the Sudanese Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has also visited the affected area, committing to provide resources to support evacuation efforts.
The United Nations is liaising with partners and local officials to reach communities affected by the collapse. The region surrounding the Arba’at Dam hosts nearly 240,000 displaced people, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration.
