Mai Mahiu:
At least 42 people were killed when a dam burst its banks near a town in Kenya's Rift Valley, the local governor told AFP on Monday, as heavy rains and flooding ravaged the country.
The dam burst at Mai Mahiu in Nakuru province, washing away homes and closing a road as rescuers dug through the rubble to find survivors.
“Forty-two deaths is a conservative estimate. There are more in the mud, we are working on recovery,” Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika said.
Monday's dam collapse raises the total number of deaths in the March to May wet season to 120, as heavier-than-usual rainfall lashes East Africa, exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern.
Meanwhile, the Kenya Red Cross said on Monday it had recovered two bodies after a boat carrying “a large number of people” capsized in eastern Kenya's flooded Tana River county last weekend, adding that 23 others had been rescued.
Video shared online and broadcast on television showed the crowded boat sinking as people screamed as onlookers watched in horror.
On Saturday, officials said 76 people have lost their lives in Kenya since March.
Flash floods have inundated roads and neighborhoods, leading to the displacement of more than 130,000 people in 24,000 households, many in the capital Nairobi, government figures released Saturday showed.
Schools have been forced to remain closed after the midterm holidays, after the Ministry of Education announced on Monday it would delay their reopening by a week due to “continued heavy rain”.
“The devastating effects of the rain in some schools are so severe that it will be imprudent to risk the lives of students and staff before foolproof measures are put in place to ensure adequate safety,” Education Minister Ezekiel Machogu said.
“Based on this assessment, the Ministry of Education has decided to postpone the reopening of all primary and secondary schools by one week, until Monday, May 6, 2024,” he said.
The monsoons have also wreaked havoc in neighboring Tanzania, where at least 155 people have been killed in floods and landslides.
In Burundi, one of the world's poorest countries, about 96,000 people have been displaced by months of persistent rain, the United Nations and the government said earlier this month.
Uganda has also suffered heavy storms that have caused riverbanks to burst, with two confirmed deaths and hundreds of villagers displaced.
Monday's dam collapse comes six years after a similar accident in Solai in Nakuru province killed 48 people, sending millions of liters of muddy water rushing through homes and destroying power lines.
The May 2018 disaster involving a private reservoir on a coffee plantation also followed weeks of torrential rains that led to deadly flooding and mudslides.
El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern generally associated with increased heat worldwide, leading to drought in some parts of the world and heavy rainfall elsewhere.
Late last year, more than 300 people died from rain and floods in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, just as the region was trying to recover from its worst drought in four decades, leaving millions hungry.
The UN's World Meteorological Organization said in March that the latest El Nino is one of the five strongest on record.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)