Authorities in Kenya have said that Aid workers pulled bodies from floodwaters across Nairobi today after flash floods that began overnight killed at least 23 people, swept away dozens of cars and disrupted flights at East Africa’s biggest Airport.
Kenyan President William Samoei Ruto has 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,” President Ruto said in a statement on social media.
In the industrial neighbourhood of Grogan, Security guard John Lomayan, 34, looked at the body of an elderly man he recognized – a roadside egg seller – 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. We didn’t know where he had gone. It is only now that we see him under the car”. Lomayan said.
Bus driver John Mwai recounted how he turned his bus into a rescue vehicle to move people to higher ground.
Kenya Airways said the rains had disrupted flights to Nairobi and forced some to divert to the coastal city Mombasa.
Scientists say global warming is worsening floods and droughts across East Africa by concentrating rainfall into shorter, more intense bursts and a 2024 World Weather Attribution study found climate change had made devastating rains in the region twice as likely as before.
A witness saw three bodies being pulled from underneath cars and some of the dead had been electrocuted by damaged power lines.
The national electricity provider Kenya Power separately said the waters had damaged equipment at a substation, listing 14 neighbourhoods that had been affected.
Cedric Mwanza said that so many cars, so much stuff and almost everything was just washed away as the water came from the Nairobi River as shocked resident looked.
Additional reporting by Humphrey Malalo in Nairobi and Associated Press.
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