Kenya’s rainy season has brought more flooding and deaths, with police saying 18 people died over the past week as heavy rains continued across the country. Authorities attributed most of the fatalities to drowning, as water rose in multiple regions and communities were forced to respond to damage and disruption.
Officials said the Interior Ministry’s damage assessments show the flooding has affected more than 54,000 households nationwide, with about 6,000 in Nairobi. The scale of the impact also extended to essential services, with dozens of schools and hospitals reported flooded and 17 roads cut off, according to the Interior Ministry.
In addition to river-linked flooding, mudslides forced thousands to move from the western Rift Valley area, authorities said. Residents living downstream of the Tana and Athi rivers were urged to move to higher ground as water levels in the country’s hydroelectric dams rose.
Kenya’s Kenya Meteorological Department has warned that enhanced rainfall is expected to continue through the first two weeks of May. Meteorologists’ forecast suggested the dangerous conditions could persist beyond the latest week of reported deaths and household disruption.
The current flooding comes after heavy rains began in March, at the start of the rainy season. By the end of March, Kenya had already recorded more than 100 deaths linked to the broader rainy-season destruction, according to the report.