NAIROBI, KENYA — A new week of relentless heavy rainfall has brought catastrophic devastation across Kenya, leaving 18 people dead in just seven days, national police confirmed in an update released Sunday. Authorities say most of the recent fatalities were caused by drowning, as swollen waterways and saturated terrain have turned everyday landscapes into life-threatening hazards.
According to data from Kenya’s Interior Ministry, the crisis has disrupted the lives of more than 54,000 households spread across every region of the East African nation. The capital city of Nairobi has not been spared, with 6,000 local households already impacted by rising floodwaters that have submerged neighborhoods and blocked access to basic services.
Across the country, critical public infrastructure has suffered extensive damage. Dozens of primary and secondary schools have been flooded, forcing widespread school closures that have put thousands of students out of classrooms. Multiple healthcare facilities have also been inundated, disrupting access to medical care for vulnerable communities. Seventeen major roads connecting regions across Kenya are now impassable, cutting off supply routes and emergency access to hard-hit areas.
Beyond flooding, the saturated soil has triggered destructive mudslides in the western Rift Valley region, forcing thousands of residents to flee their homes for safer ground. Authorities have also issued evacuation orders for communities living downstream along the Tana and Athi rivers, where water levels behind the nation’s hydroelectric dams have climbed to dangerous heights, raising the risk of downstream flooding.
Kenya’s national Meteorological Department is warning that the crisis is far from over, forecasting that intensified rainfall will persist through the first half of May. This ongoing downpour is part of an unusually severe rainy season that began in March, which has already left a wide path of destruction across the country. By the end of March, the early weeks of the rainy season had already claimed the lives of more than 100 Kenyans, making this one of the deadliest rainy season events in recent years for the nation.