Heavy rainfall in the Horn of Africa has led to at least 168 deaths in recent days, local authorities report. Seventy people have been killed in Kenya and almost forty thousand families have had to leave their homes, Kenyan President William Ruto said on Saturday. The Somali Disaster Management Authority has the death toll in that country on the same day adjusted to 96, compared to 50 deaths earlier this week.
The rainy season in the region is exceptionally heavy, probably due to the weather phenomenon El Niño, in which higher water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean influence the global climate. The floods follow a period in which it was extremely dry. At the beginning of this month, aid organization Red Cross Africa warned that floods could affect 1.6 million Somalis this year.
President Ruto said last month that his country had nothing to fear from El Niño flooding. He said that “there would be rain, but it would not be destructive.” After floods caused damage in Somalia on Tuesday, authorities warned of more rainfall that would cause “even more death and destruction.”
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