Nairobi (EFE).- The number of deaths when a river overflowed this Monday in southern Kenya, destroying hundreds of houses and vehicles, rose from 45 to at least 71, as confirmed on Tuesday by the Kenyan vice president, Rigathi Gachagua, while the country It has been facing heavy rains and devastating floods for weeks.
“We have 46 people in the morgue, but more bodies are being taken there, so it will be around 71. There are many others (people) who are still missing and the search continues,” Gachagua told a local radio station.
The death toll was also confirmed by the governor of Nakuru County, Susan Kihika, where the tragedy occurred.
The causes of the tragedy
Initially, authorities reported that the disaster occurred because the walls of the Dark Tunnel Valley dam, located in the Kijabe hills, burst, but the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Sanitation denied that version late on Monday, by attributing the disaster to the blockage of a tunnel.
The conduit, which was supposed to channel the waters of the Tongi River under a train track, was blocked by debris, rocks, logs and earth slid by the heavy rainfall that hit the country, causing the river to overflow and some of its tributaries.
“Due to the force and pressure exerted, the water washed away the railway line and began moving downstream at a very high speed and rapidity, causing destruction of property and loss of life to people living downstream,” the Ministry said in a statement.
The tragedy especially hit the town of Kamuchiri, near the city of Mai Mahiu.
More than 200 deaths in one month
As detailed by the authorities this Monday, more than 110 people were rescued from the mud – although it is feared that there are more trapped – and transferred to local hospitals by volunteers from the Red Cross and the Nakuru emergency services.
“I woke up submerged in water around 3 a.m. (00:00 GMT). The walls of the house had collapsed. “My family and I were floating in the water,” said one of those affected, William Lokai, 43, to the local newspaper ‘The Standard’.
The incident also caused the closure of the main road between Nairobi and Mai Mahiu, full of rocks, mud and logs.
The Kenyan Minister of the Interior, Kithure Kindiki, put the total number of deaths in the country due to floods during the last month at 169, a figure that does not include the latest update on deaths.
“A total of 91 people are currently missing. Mai Mahiu represents 53 of these missing people while (the county of) Garissa (east) has reported that it does not know the whereabouts of 16 people,” the Ministry said.
Likewise, around 190,942 Kenyans have been affected by the floods and around 150,500 have had to leave their homes, while a hundred have been injured.
Floods in other neighboring countries
Faced with this crisis, the Kenyan Ministry of Education has postponed the start of the second term in public primary and secondary schools for one week, until May 6.
Torrential rainfall has damaged numerous infrastructures throughout the national territory, such as bridges and roads.
In addition to Kenya, other East African countries including Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have also been negatively affected by the floods.
The Prime Minister of Tanzania, Kassim Majaliwa, raised last Thursday from 66 to 155 the number of people killed in the country so far in April due to heavy rains and floods intensified by the El Niño meteorological phenomenon.
El Niño is a change in atmospheric dynamics caused by an increase in the temperature of the Pacific Ocean.
These floods come after the worst drought recorded in the Horn of Africa in the last four decades, a lack of water that left neighboring Somalia on the brink of famine in 2023 and with 6.6 million people acutely food insecure. according to the UN.
