Hundreds dead in floods in Kenya and Tanzania, more heavy rain expected

Dozens of roads and bridges have been destroyed by the extreme weather. 200 thousand Kenyans were forced to leave their homes due to the rainfall. President William Ruto says Kenyans living near dams, rivers and water reservoirs must leave.

In Kamuchiri, a village near Mai Mahiu, a city 60 kilometers north of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, at least 52 people died on Monday after a dam burst. According to the Kenyan Ministry of Home Affairs, almost as many people are missing. The army has been deployed to search for bodies with sniffer dogs.

The floods are also damaging the tourism sector, which is important to the Kenyan economy – the industry accounts for more than 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Due to persistent rainfall, the Talek River in Maasai Mara Game Reserve, in south-west Kenya, flooded on Wednesday. The Kenyan Red Cross has deployed helicopters and boats to rescue tourists in the area.

Extreme weather

The extreme weather fits within a pattern of increasing drought and heavy rainfall. According to a recent report from the African Climate Fund, extreme weather led to a loss of 3 to 5 percent of Kenya’s GDP from 2010 to 2020. In the report, researchers warn that the frequency and intensity of these types of events will increase.

“Storms like this form very quickly,” says meteorologist Zachary Misiani on the phone from Nairobi. ‘Over the past week we regularly saw that a thunder cloud forms in just a few hours, making it very difficult to warn people in time.’ Provinces where almost no rain falls have also been seriously affected. “All that rainwater flows to lower-lying provinces,” says the meteorologist, “causing dams to break and lakes and rivers to overflow their banks in a short time.” Misiani expects the extreme weather to last at least until Thursday.

Black Swan

Researchers are calling the weather phenomenon Kenya is currently experiencing a ‘black swan’ – an oddity. “Kenya has never experienced this before,” said climate expert Linda Ogallo of the East African climate forecasting agency ICPAC. She is one of the scientists investigating the origins of the heavy rainfall. “The extreme weather we are experiencing now in Kenya requires many local factors,” she explains. ‘We are now mapping all these factors before we can say with certainty that the heavy rainfall is caused by climate change.’

However, several experts already state that the heavy rainfall has been reinforced by El Niño. During this natural phenomenon, seawater in the South Pacific Ocean suddenly warms, affecting weather conditions around the world. Climate change can weaken certain effects of El Niño, but strengthen others.

According to climate forecasting agency ICPAC, the effects of El Niño will be more severe in the coming years due to climate change. “All our projections show that we are going to see a lot more extreme weather like this in the coming years,” Ogallo said. ‘That has to do with ocean convection, which occurs when cold and warm water currents come together. As the oceans warm, we will experience more intense hurricanes and typhoons around the world.”