Hundreds of people have died in the floods and hundreds of thousands have had to flee their homes in Somalia alone.
Heavy rains have plagued East Africa for a month already. There have been heavy rains in the Coastal region of the Indian Ocean from Somalia to Tanzania.
For about three years, East Africa suffered from the worst drought in at least 40 years. The rainy seasons, which are decisive for agriculture, failed to come several times in a row. This led to severe food shortages. The cattle had to be slaughtered in an emergency when there was not enough drinking water or food for the animals.
During years of drought, the soil hardened. The water from the heavy rains that started in November does not soak into the ground, but remains on the surface, causing floods, especially in the vicinity of riverbeds.
EU Environmental Information Centre Copernicus tellsthat in Somalia alone more than a hundred people have died and 750,000 people have had to leave their homes because of the floods.
There are at least 63 victims of floods in Tanzania, says the president Samia Suluhu Hassan. He suspended his participation in the Dubai Climate Summit and returned to his home country to lead rescue efforts in the flood disaster.
In Tanzania, the floods have particularly affected the small town of Kateshi in the northern part of the country. The flood water that flowed from the slopes of the nearby Hanang Mountain during the night turned the city’s streets into a muddy flood, says The Citizen magazine.
News videos filmed in Tanzania show a muddy flood carrying away all kinds of debris and parts of buildings.
Climate change in the background
The variation of dry seasons and heavy rains has been typical for East Africa. The rotation is caused by a weather phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole. The phenomenon, which repeats every few years, is the Indian Ocean’s counterpart to the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean.
On the coast on the African side of the sea, the water temperature rises, as a result of which heavy rains drift onto the continent. The last time there was news about rains and floods was in 2019. In between was four years of exceptionally severe drought.
Climatologists believe that global warming is also intensifying the dipole phenomenon in the Indian Ocean. The Horn of Africa and East Africa are regions that suffer from climate change more than many other regions.
The heat becomes even hotter, which worsens the drought problem. Correspondingly, the rains come more violently than before, when the earth does not have time to absorb water and thus repair the soil’s moisture deficit. At the same time, floods cause even more destruction.
The UN climate summit is currently underway in Dubai, where ways to stop climate change and help countries suffering from it are being discussed.
Sources: AFP, Reuters