At least 155 people have died in Tanzania as torrential rains linked to El Nino triggered flooding and landslides, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said Thursday.In Burundi, one of the poorest countries on the planet, around 96,000 people have been displaced by months of relentless rains.
In addition, about 45 people have been killed in Kenya since the start of the rainy season in March, including 13 who lost their lives in flash floods in the capital Nairobi this week.
Kenyan President William Ruto convened an emergency multi-agency meeting Thursday to respond to the crisis after torrential rains triggered floods that caused chaos across the city, blocking roads and bridges and engulfing homes in slum districts.
Kenyans have been warned to stay on alert, with the forecast for more heavy rains across the country, while officials said people living in the most vulnerable areas would be relocated.
“The government… will do whatever it takes, apply all the required resources in terms of money and personnel to make sure that lives are not lost and the people of Kenya are protected from this disaster,” Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua told a press briefing.
Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian response agency OCHA said in an update this week that in Somalia, the Gu (April to June) rains are intensifying with flash floods reported since April 19.
It said four people have been reportedly killed at least 134 families or more than 800 people affected or displaced across the country.
Late last year more than 300 people died in torrential rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia just as as the region was trying to recover from its worst drought in four decades that left millions of people hungry.
From October 1997 to January 1998, massive floods caused more than 6,000 deaths in five countries in the region.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in March that El Nino, which peaked in December, was one of the five strongest ever recorded.
Though the weather pattern is now gradually weakening, its impact will continue over the coming months by fuelling the heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, it said.
Therefore “above normal temperatures are predicted over almost all land areas between March and May”, the WMO said in a quarterly update.
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