By Robert Nagila
“The situation in Tana River County is critical, the entire population in the county is affected,” retired Major Dhadho Godhana, the Governor Tana River County, some 300 km from Kenya’s capital Nairobi, told me.
He had just come from the latest briefing by local officials and the Kenya Red Cross on the situation on the ground.
The picture they painted was grim.
By week’s end, over 64,000 residents in this one county alone, had been displaced and water levels in the Tana River were still rising.
The threat of diseases such as cholera and typhoid was now very real.
Kenya has received more than average rainfall in the past two months. Its hydro dams which were almost dry, were now filled to capacity. So much so, that the Kenya energy electricity generating company, known by its acronym, KENGEN, released excess water from its dams.
That coupled with the excess rainfall caused flooding downstream, engulfed whole farms, cut off villages along the River Tana and in the process created a humanitarian crisis.
I tagged along with a Red Cross team led by Hassan Musa, the Regional Manager as they delivered blankets, nets and tents to a village in Galili, marooned by the floods.
The journey had to be taken by boat as a quarter of the county’s road network has been rendered impassable by the floods
It is on this journey that it dawned on me how serious the crisis was. Whole villages under water, farms completely destroyed, animals washed away.
In the end the Tana River had become one huge lake, breaching its banks along several places on its way to the Indian Ocean.
After delivering the non-food items officials promised to return the next day with medical supplies and food.
The villagers were starving with no drinking water.
About 180 camps have been set up in the county. many are yet to receive aid, but for now they are out of danger from the floods.
Here are some of the pictures from Tana River:
