The severest flooding to hit Somalia in decades has killed 29 people and compelled over 300,000 to flee their homes, according to a report by the National Disaster Management Agency had on Wednesday, November 8, after heavy rains flooded the towns across East Africa.
Officials have rushed to rescue thousands of helpless people from the floodwater, the worst flooding seen so far in over 40 years
“It is worse than even the 1997 floods,” Hassan Isse, managing director of the Somali Disaster Management Agency, SOMDA, had said.
Isse had added that the death toll and numbers of people displaced were likely to increase further, because many people were trapped by the floodwaters.
The United Nations had revealed that at least 2,400 people have been cut off in Luuq town, where the Jubba River burst its banks.
Floods in neighbouring Kenya have meanwhile, killed about 15 people and submerged a bridge in Uganda, cutting off access to a road securing Kampala to oilfields in the northwest, the Kenya Red Cross and Uganda’s road authority said.
A climate analyst at the International Crisis Group, Nazanine Moshiri, had said that the regional downpour had been caused by the consolidated effect of two weather phenomenons: El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole.
El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole are the climate patterns that force ocean surface temperatures and cause an above-average rainfall.
Scientists have said that climate change is causing very intense and more recurrent extreme weather events. In response, African leaders have suggested new global taxes and reforms to international financial institutions to help invest in climate change action.
