Thursday, April 25, 2024 /Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The rainy season, aggravated by the El Niño climatic phenomenon, is having deadly consequences in East Africa: Tanzania announced on Thursday that 155 people had died. Heavy rains have caused flooding and landslides in various parts of the country, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa told parliament.
“More than 51,000 households and 200,000 people have been affected, with 155 deaths, around 236 people injured and more than 10,000 homes damaged to varying degrees,” he listed, without specifying the period over which the deaths had been recorded.
He also said that many crops, infrastructure such as roads, bridges and railroads had been damaged by the bad weather. The devastating effects of the rains are “mainly due to environmental degradation”, he added, particularly deforestation.
On Thursday, neighboring Kenya was counting and searching for the dead and missing, the day after flooding hit several districts of the capital Nairobi and neighboring counties, cutting off roads and railroads. The death toll rose to 13, following the discovery of three bodies in the Mathare slum, one of the hardest-hit areas, the authorities announced.
Prior to the floods, at least 32 people had already died and more than 40,000 had been displaced in the country since the start of the rainy season in March, according to the UN humanitarian agency (Ocha). This brings the total death toll to at least 45.
Several other countries in the region are affected by unusually heavy rainfall, caused by El Niño, which began in mid-2023 and could last until May, warned the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
In Burundi, the authorities have reported that 96,000 people have been internally displaced by the almost incessant rains over the past few months.

Humaniterre with AFP

Photo credits: AFP