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NAIROBI, May 9 (Xinhua) – Water levels in Kenya’s rivers and lakes have risen to the highest level in about five decades due to heavy rains in attributed to climate change.
The East African nation has experienced heavy rains in the past two seasons, from October to December 2019 and from March to May this year, which is still ongoing.
During the two seasons, the director of the meteorological department, Stella Aura, points out that most of the regions have been receiving up to 100 mm of rain in one day.
The rains have been the most intense in the west, the Rift Valley, the center and the coast of Kenya.
However, the most affected are the west and the Rift Valley, where at least 194 people have been killed and more than 100,000 displaced, according to the Devolution ministry.
The river waters flowing in both parts of the country have risen to unprecedented levels, also pushing the water in Lake Victoria to a new level.
The result is that the majority of residents living in areas close to the rivers and the lake have been displaced and the islands have been invaded by raging waters.
For most residents, the phenomenon is occurring for the first time in their lives.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 48 years of life,” Collins Mukadi, a resident of Budalang’i in Busia County, western Kenya, said Saturday.
“I have lived my whole life here and this is the first time that the lake has broken its banks and the water has invaded our villages. The lake is furious and angry,” he added.
He reported that the lake water in the region has expanded both vertically and horizontally.
“The waters have overflowed from the banks for about 30 meters towards our houses, displacing many people. Over the years, the water has receded but this time the opposite happened,” he said.
While some of the residents are dealing with flooding due to the lake, others have been displaced by the water from the Nzoia River, which empties into the freshwater body.
Residents of other parts of western Kenya bordering the lake are experiencing a similar situation.
This includes Migori, Homa Bay, Siaya, and Kisumu. In the areas, residents had invaded the lakeshore knowing it would go back forever, but the effects of climate change have overturned the norm.
“If you visit Dunga Beach today, you won’t know that this is the place that is full of human activity because the whole area is submerged,” said Felix Onyango, a resident of Kisumu, the lakeside port city of Kenya.
The situation has been worsened by the fact that Uganda and Tanzania, which share Lake Victoria with Kenya, are also experiencing heavy rains.
The executive director of the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, an institution of the East African Community, Ally-Said Matano, notes that in all three countries, the lake’s waters have risen by an average of 13 meters due to rains abnormally strong. Final product
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