Kenya on Sunday mentioned tens of hundreds of individuals throughout the nation had been impacted by heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides that had additionally interrupted cargo companies at Mombasa port.
The Horn of Africa has skilled intense rainfall linked to the El Nino climate phenomenon in latest weeks that has claimed dozens of lives, together with not less than 46 in numerous components of Kenya.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua mentioned not less than 80,000 households in Kenya had been affected “with numbers rising daily.”
He mentioned the federal government was responding to “save our individuals” together with with helicopters and different emergency companies to ship assist and rescue marooned households.
“This example has continued to threaten lives,” he mentioned in a press release issued Sunday, urging the general public to keep away from floodwaters and evacuate houses in low-lying areas.
The extended rainfall was anticipated to increase into the primary quarter of subsequent yr, he added.
Officers mentioned 9 individuals have died within the coastal area since final week together with two passengers in a automotive belonging to the Kenya Income Authority that was swept off a flooded bridge in Kwale County on Friday morning.
“A multi-agency workforce led by the Kenya Coast Guard Service is on scene making an attempt to retrieve the our bodies,” the inside ministry mentioned Sunday.
Kenya Railways mentioned floods and landslides had brought about an “surprising delay” in deliveries to Mombasa port and alongside the cargo rail line to Nairobi.
“Consequently, this has affected regular prepare operations, together with cargo transfers, loading in addition to offloading actions on the Port of Mombasa,” the state-owned railway mentioned in a press release on Saturday posted on X, previously Twitter.
A landslide in a single part of the road between Mombasa and Nairobi had resulted in “the closure of that part for all freight trains” however restricted passenger companies have been nonetheless transferring, it added.
Mombasa, the nation’s second-largest metropolis, and its port and railway cargo line serve not simply Kenya but additionally landlocked neighbors together with Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda.
British charity Save the Kids on Thursday mentioned greater than 100 individuals, together with 16 youngsters, had died and over 700,000 been compelled out of their houses in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia resulting from flash flooding.
The variety of individuals displaced by heavy rains and floods in Somalia “has almost doubled in a single week” to 649,000, the UN humanitarian company OCHA mentioned in its newest figures issued on Saturday.