Floods in Kenya: at least 42 people killed due to dam failure

Torrential rains and deadly consequences. At least 42 people have died in Kenya after a dam burst northwest of the capital Nairobi. “42 dead is a preliminary number. There are other people stuck in the mud and we are trying to find them,” local governor Susan Kihika said on Monday.

The dam burst near the town of Mai Mahiu in Nakuru County in the Rift Valley, about 100 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, demolishing houses and flooding roads that are now cut off to traffic. Monday’s disaster brings the total death toll during the monsoon season (March-May) to 120.

The Kenya Red Cross announced on Monday that it had recovered two bodies after a boat carrying “a large number of people” capsized this weekend on the swollen Tana River in the country’s east. According to the same source, 23 people were rescued. Video posted online shows a crowded boat with screaming passengers sinking.

Schools are closed

Kenya’s government on Friday urged people to prepare for more, even heavier rains and reported an initial death toll of 76 in floods since March. Kenya and much of East Africa have been hit by heavier-than-usual seasonal rain for weeks due to the El Niño climate phenomenon.

Flash floods have inundated roads and entire neighborhoods, displacing more than 130,000 people in Kenya, many of them in the capital Nairobi, according to official data released Saturday.

Schools were forced to remain closed after the latest holidays, with the Ministry of Education announcing on Monday that the start of the school year would be delayed by a week due to “continued heavy rain”. “The devastating impact of rain on some schools is so great that it would be unwise to risk the lives of students and staff,” Education Minister Ezekiel Machogu said. Based on this assessment, the Department of Education has decided to delay the start of the school year in all primary and secondary schools by one week, to Monday 6 May 2024.

Tens of thousands of displaced people in Burundi

The monsoon also wreaked havoc in neighboring Tanzania, where floods and landslides killed at least 155 people. In Burundi, one of the world’s poorest countries, some 96,000 people have been forced to flee their homes due to months of persistent rain, the United Nations and government announced earlier this month. Uganda was also hit by severe storms that caused flooding that killed at least two people and forced hundreds of villagers from their homes.

In 2018, in the same Nakuru County where Mai Mahiu is located, a rupture of the Solai Dam caused by heavy rains and floods has already killed 48 people, releasing millions of liters of muddy water, damaging homes and power lines.

The El Niño weather phenomenon, which is believed to be contributing to the current situation, is usually associated with rising global temperatures that cause droughts in some regions and floods in others. Late last year, more than 300 people died from rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia as the region struggled to recover from its worst drought in 40 years that left millions hungry. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported in March that the current El Niño is among the five strongest on record.