Kenya dam burst: About 50 killed in villages near Mai Mahiu town

According to a Red Cross official, a dam in Kenya burst its banks as a result of intense rainfall and flooding, killing about 50 people.

As they slept, residents of villages close to Mai Mahiu, which is roughly 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Nairobi, were washed away.

People are still being pulled out of the muck by rescue workers, but there are worries that the death toll may go up.
In the past month, floods that devastated regions of Kenya have claimed the lives of over 100 people.

People were startled awake in the wee hours of Monday by the sound of a tidal wave that rushed down from an upriver dam that had burst in the Mai Mahiu neighbourhood.

Locals described a desperate attempt that night to rescue them from the rushing water and extricate them from the muck.

The dead toll has grown to fifty, according to Anthony Muchiri, emergency response manager for the Kenya Red Cross, who joined search and rescue efforts.

“In my professional experience, this is the worst I’ve ever encountered,” he remarked, adding that not only were people’s houses destroyed, but also their bases.

Police Commander Stephen Kirui stated, as reported by the Reuters news agency, that 17 of the bodies collected so far were those of children.

The little settlements of Kianugu and Kamuchiri were among those that took the worst damage from the accident.

“Many homes and cars were carried away by the Old Kijabe Dam’s swiftly rising water. Since we were born here in Mai Mahiu, we have never witnessed such severe floods, David Kamau told the BBC.

Another local, Peter Muhoho, reported that in Kianugu, a settlement of roughly eighteen houses, the majority of his neighbours had been washed away.

“I heard screaming and a big crash when I was asleep. The place was swamped with water. We began saving lives,” Mr. Muhoho said to the BBC.

Mr. Muhoho continued, pointing to a bag he was carrying and said, “This bag belongs to a kid I knew.” He vanished into thin air. The bag was located downstream.

While some of his family began cleaning the mud off the few items they had been able to recover, Deden Muiri stood alongside his collapsed home and said he had no idea where he would sleep on Monday night.

Forecasters predict more rain, therefore the government in Kenya has postponed the opening of schools throughout the country.

The floods have caused the displacement of almost 130,000 people, many of whom are seeking shelter in schools.

Additionally, Burundi and Tanzania, two neighbours, have seen intense rains.

Tanzania has seen at least 155 fatalities since January.

There have been close to 100,000 displaced individuals in Burundi.

Although the exact number of deaths is unknown, 68 people are said to have died in Bujumbura, the capital, on February 10 alone as a result of 3,500 homes being demolished by severe rains, according to a website affiliated with the UN.

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is one of the main causes of the rain, according to Chris Fawkes of BBC Weather.

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The IOD, sometimes known as the “Indian Niño” due to its resemblance to its Pacific counterpart, describes the variation in sea-surface temperatures in different regions of the Indian Ocean.

In a positive phase, larger rains can still fall even in the absence of El Niño due to the significantly warmer waters in the western Indian Ocean.

But when an El Niño and a good IOD coincide, as they did last year, the rains in East Africa can get quite heavy.

In 1997 and 1998, one of the strongest El Niño patterns ever recorded and one of the strongest positive IOD patterns ever recorded corresponded, with reports of severe flooding. Over 6,000 people died as a result of this in five neighbouring nations.

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