The Angolan provincial governor of Benguela, where floods killed as many as 74 people last week, blamed local officials for allowing people to build houses in flood-prone areas, the state-run Jornal de Angola reported.

The flooding washed away 119 houses on March 11 and displaced hundreds of residents in the port city of Lobito, Isaak dos Anjos said, according to the newspaper. An earlier count put the death total at 64, including 24 children.

The government pledged 100 million kwanzas ($937,000) for reconstruction and allocated 2,500 plots to start building new houses for those left homeless, according to the Jornal.

Housing shortages and income inequality in the southwest African country, the continent’s third-largest economy, force more than two-thirds of people in the nation of 24 million to live in slums. The country is emerging from a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002, leaving the population even more vulnerable to flooding and extreme weather.