At least 23 people have been killed in flash floods in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, according to the Reuters news agency.
Citing authorities, Reuters reported that the floods had swept away dozens of cars and disrupted flights at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, East Africa’s largest.
Kenyan President William Ruto said he had deployed a team of emergency responders, including soldiers, to coordinate rescue efforts, while offering condolences to the affected communities.
“I have also ordered that relief food from our national strategic reserves be immediately released and distributed to families affected by the floods,” he said in a statement on social media, according to Reuters.
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A Reuters reporter said he had seen three bodies pulled from underneath cars and that some of the dead had been electrocuted by damaged power lines.
Kenya Power, a utility regulator, separately said the waters had damaged equipment at a substation, listing 14 neighbourhoods that had been affected, according to Reuters.
“So many cars, so much stuff, I don’t know. Everything was just [washed away]. All of the water (came) … from that river,” shocked resident Cedric Mwanza said, referring to the Nairobi River.
In the industrial neighbourhood of Grogan, Reuters reported, security guard John Lomayan, 34, said he had witnessed the body a roadside egg seller, an elderly man, trapped beneath a car that had been washed away when the Nairobi River burst its banks.
“I saw him being carried by the water from up there,” he said, gesturing up the road. “We didn’t know where he had gone. It is only now that we see him under the car.”
Bus driver John Mwai recounted how he turned his bus into a rescue vehicle to move people to higher ground.
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS OUR READERS OFTEN ASK
Kenya Airways said the rains had disrupted flights to Nairobi and forced some to divert to the coastal city of Mombasa.
Scientists say global warming is worsening floods and droughts across East Africa by concentrating rainfall into shorter, more intense bursts.
According to Reuters, a 2024 World Weather Attribution study found climate change had made devastating rains in the region twice as likely as before.
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