Floods caused by two weeks of heavy rain have washed out roads and submerged entire villages in Kenya, killing at least 30 people and forcing thousands from their homes, a Red Cross official said today.
Rains have also triggered landslides that have damaged the water treatment system for Nairobi, disrupting water distribution to one third of the capital's estimated 3 million people, the Daily Nationnewspaper reported.
According to the report, floodwaters on Sunday swept away the pipes leading from a reservoir behind the country's second-largest dam to the treatment plant in the Aberdare Mountains northwest of the city.
Officials said it will be at least two weeks until water distribution is restored.
Western Kenya appeared to be the region hardest hit, with more than 15,000 people displaced over the last two weeks, said Mary Kuria, the secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross.
Red Cross teams have been sent to the flooded areas and are distributing blankets, plastic sheeting and food, she said.
The government has also sent out a team to assess flood damage.
Flooding is common during Kenya's two rainy seasons from October to December and from April to June. The African nation's poorly built roads and bridges are routinely washed out.
In northeastern Kenya, flooding at the remote Dadaab refugee camp, home to an estimated 125,000 people, more than 90 percent of whom are Somalis, has washed away hundreds of mud and thatch huts, displacing thousands of people, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR said in a statement.
AP