climate changes <>
our friends in Kenya
suffer again

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Quoted from here
c Agence France-Presse (AFP), 13 Nov 2006
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/VBOL-6VHHK8?OpenDocument

Killer floods wreak havoc as Kenya hosts UN climate change meet
by Bogonko Bosire

NAIROBI, Nov 13, 2006 (AFP) -

At least 21 people have been killed and 60,000 displaced by massive flooding
in northern and coastal Kenya, triggered by three weeks of unusually heavy
seasonal rains, officials said Monday.

As downpours continue, officials warned of further devastation, while
delegates meet at a United Nations conference in Nairobi on climate change
that many blame for altering weather patterns and spawning deadly
drought-flood cycles.

"We have floods across the country and, since it is still raining, we fear
the situation will deteroriate," said Abdi Ahmed, the acting disaster
response chief at the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS).

In addition, the Kenyan health ministry on Sunday issued an alert for
possible outbreaks of water-borne diseases, notably cholera, in the affected
regions.

At the weekend, at least six people, including a schoolgirl, were swept away
and drowned by raging waters around the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa and the
northeastern town of Garissa, officials said. Two others are missing.

The fatalities brought Kenya's flood death toll to 21 since October 25, when
the first damaging effects of the unusually heavy October-to-December "short
rains" season were reported by authorities.

Since then, at least 60,000 Kenyans -- 50,000 on the coast and 10,000 in the
northeast -- have been forced from their homes by flood waters that have
washed away crop fields, bridges and roads and destroyed numerous buildings.

"All these people are directly affected or completely cut off and we cannot
access them," Ahmed told AFP.

On Saturday, the main road linking Mombasa, about 500 kilometers (300 miles)
southeast of Nairobi, to Tanzania was cut off with four bridges washed away,
a local official said.

"Delivering food to the 50,000 people who are in need of urgent supplies is
the main problem," said Moffat Kangi, the commissioner of Kwale district
just south of Mombasa.

"We are looking for water, shelter and medicine for the affected people, but
in the long run we will be required to assist up to 200,000 people here," he
told AFP. "Any help we can get will be appreciated."

In the capital, municipal officials said flood waters had blocked the city's
drainage system, causing floods in some residential districts.

But the recent floods are not limited to Kenya, which is being hit as it
hosts 6,000 international delegates to the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) that ends this week.

The onset of rains has compounded problems across the Horn of Africa region
already brought by a recent killer drought with water unable to be absorbed
by parched soil inundating the worst-affected areas, officials said.

In neighboring Somalia, floods have killed at least 42 and displaced 10,000
people over the past two weeks, compounding the misery affecting millions in
the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

In neighboring Ethiopia, flooding from late October rains that burst the
banks of several river has killed at least 68 people and affected some
280,000 people, according to officials there.

bkb-mvl/boc

Copyright (c) 2006 Agence France-Presse
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Kenya Saijiki
Now is the season of SHORT RAINS in Kenya
http://kenyasaijiki.blogspot.com/


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