Seventy-six folks in Kenya have died due to flooding triggered by torrential downpours since March, the federal government has stated, warning residents “to brace for even heavier rainfall”.
Kenya and its east African neighbours have been battered by stronger than standard rain in latest weeks, compounded by the El Niño climate system.
Flash floods have submerged roads and neighbourhoods, resulting in the displacement of greater than 130,000 folks throughout 24,000 households, lots of them within the capital, Nairobi, the federal government spokesperson, Isaac Mwaura, stated.
“We deeply remorse to announce the tragic lack of a further six lives within the final 12 hours, bringing the full to 76,” he stated on Saturday, including that 29 folks had sustained accidents and 19 had been reported lacking.
“Nairobi is presently experiencing the very best impression, with a major dying toll of 32 and 16,909 households displaced.”
Mwaura stated all 5 dams comprising the Seven Forks hydropower challenge alongside the Tana river, Kenya’s longest, have been at whole capability.
“There’s a prediction of a large overflow downstream throughout the subsequent 24 hours. Residents in these areas are suggested to maneuver to greater grounds,” he stated.
The monsoons have triggered havoc throughout neighbouring Tanzania as effectively, with at the very least 155 folks killed in flooding and landslides.
“The state of affairs right here is basically scary,” stated Khatibu Kapara, a resident of Dar es Salaam’s Jangwani neighbourhood.
“Many individuals together with myself have been affected by floods. Many individuals have misplaced their property because of floods, their homes have been surrounded” by water, the 35-year-old stated.
In Burundi, one of many world’s poorest international locations, about 96,000 folks had been displaced by months of relentless rain, the United Nations and the federal government stated this month.
There have additionally been heavy storms in Uganda, inflicting riverbanks to overflow, with two deaths confirmed and several other hundred villagers displaced.
Late final yr, greater than 300 folks died in rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, simply because the area was attempting to recuperate from its worst drought in 4 a long time, which left hundreds of thousands of individuals hungry.
El Niño is a naturally occurring local weather sample usually related to elevated warmth worldwide, resulting in drought in some components of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.
The UN’s World Meteorological Group stated in March that the most recent El Niño was one of many 5 strongest ever recorded.
