MAY 2024

AFRICA

At least 45 people died when a makeshift dam burst its banks near a southern town in Kenya’s Rift valley in the early hours of Monday, police said, as torrential rains and floods hit the country.  The disaster raises the total death toll over the March-May wet season in Kenya to more than 100, as heavier-than-usual rainfall pounds east Africa, compounded by El Niño weather pattern.  Isaac Mwaura, a government spokesperson, estimated that the death toll was 103 people, “with the Rift Valley being the worst hit”. In a post on X, Mwaura said 185,297 had been displaced adding that search and rescue operations were ongoing as well as efforts to support people.  Residents said the dam burst in the dead of night, sending water gushing down a hill and engulfing everything in its path. The deluge cut off a road, uprooted trees and washed away homes and overturned vehicles.  “We heard what sounded like an earthquake and roars like a   oving train,” said Margaret Wangechi, 52, a teacher.  A senior officer at Nakuru County police headquarters told AFP by phone that 45 bodies had been recovered so far, while the Nakuru governor, Susan Kihika, said 110 people were being treated in hospital.  Rescuers were digging through the debris, using hoes and in some cases their bare hands in a desperate search for survivors.  “We collected some of the bodies held by trees and we don’t know how many are under the mud,” said Stephen Njihia Njoroge, who was involved in the emergency efforts.  The disaster occurred at Old Kijabe dam, a hillside barrier formed naturally over decades after railway construction work by Kenya’s former British colonial rulers.  The Red Cross has set up a desk at a local school to help families find lost relatives.

ASIA

At least five people were killed and 33 injured after a tornado struck the Chinese city of Guangzhou over the weekend, state media reported, in the latest bout of extreme weather to hit the country’s industrial heartland.  China’s official Xinhua news agency said that the tornado hit the Guangdong province capital, in the country’s south on Saturday. About 140 factories were damaged, but there were no reports of collapsed houses.  Guangdong, China’s most populous province, is home to 127 million people and thousands of factories that power the nation’s export sector.   Aerial photos posted by Chinese state media on Sunday showed the tornado had caused wide devastation in parts of the city. The images showed block upon block of damage in the hardest-hit areas with a few clusters of buildings standing amid the destruction.

Heavy rainstorms that swept across southern China over the weekend killed at least four people as floods swamped cities in the densely populated Pearl River Delta, state media reported.  A search was under way for 10 others missing after record-breaking rains sparked concerns about the region’s defenses against bigger deluges induced by extreme weather events.   By Monday, about 110,000 people had been evacuated across the province, while 25,800 people were in emergency shelters, according to Xinhua. 
In Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, the government said the city had logged a cumulative rainfall of 60.9cm in April, the highest monthly rainfall since record-keeping began in 1959.  The country’s highest-level red rainstorm warning was issued for parts of Guangdong, including the megacity of Shenzhen, the city’s meteorological observatory said. The areas listed were experiencing “heavy to very heavy downpours”, the weather agency said, adding the risk of flash floods was “very high”.  The official Xinhua news agency said three people died in Zhaoqing city while one rescuer died in Shaoguan city. It didn’t provide details about when or how they died. The two cities in Guangdong province are among the worst hit areas of sustained torrential rains that began late last week.

Heavy rain has fallen in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past week, with flooding causing widespread damage to infrastructure and farmland on both sides of the border.  At least 135 people have been reported dead, including 21 farmers in the Punjab region who were struck by lightning while harvesting wheat. Thousands of houses have been damaged or destroyed, with several deaths attributed to roofs collapsing under the weight of collected water. Alongside damage to almost 100,000 acres of agricultural land, thousands of livestock animals have been lost.  The extreme rainfall came in stark contrast to the uncommonly dry winter, during which Afghanistan received only about half its usual rainfall, while Pakistan fared little better. The resulting drier soils struggled to absorb the rain, which exacerbated the flooding.

UNITED STATES

At least four people, including a baby, were killed after a series of tornadoes struck Oklahoma on Saturday, amid a weekend of extreme weather that left dozens injured and a trail of destruction across the Midwest.  Local authorities confirmed that a four-month-old infant was among the two people dead in Holdenville – one of the hardest-hit towns in Oklahoma, located 80 miles south-east of Oklahoma City – where about 20 tornadoes hit late on Saturday, leveling buildings and ripping off roofs. The victims have not been named, but at least four others were injured as the tornado left a path of devastation through the town of about 6,000 people.  A third death occurred near Marietta on Interstate 35 (I-35) which was closed on Sunday at the border with Texas “due to overturned vehicles and power lines across the highway”, according to the Oklahoma office of emergency management. The body of a woman, the fourth known victim, was recovered from the debris near a bar in downtown Sulphur, said Governor Kevin Stitt, who has issued a state of emergency for 12 Oklahoma counties.  Search and rescue efforts continued through Sunday as emergency services responded to extensive damage caused by the hail, high winds and flooding.

Tornadoes that hit Michigan on Tuesday evening ripped the roof off a FedEx building in Portage, partially collapsing the structure and trapping 50 people inside, Kalamazoo county authorities said. Elsewhere in the state, thousands of residents were without power and faced a deluge of hail and tornado warnings amid severe thunderstorms. “TAKE COVER NOW,” the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids warned in a post directed at Portage residents on its Facebook page.

The Houston area was under threat of worsening flood conditions on Saturday, a day after heavy storms slammed the region – and authorities warned those in low-lying areas to evacuate before an expected surge of water the likes of which haven’t been seen since Hurricane Harvey.   A flood watch remained in effect through Sunday afternoon as forecasters predicted additional rainfall on Saturday night, bringing another 1-3in (2.5-7.6cm) of water to the soaked region and the likelihood of major flooding.  Friday’s storms forced numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes. Officials redoubled urgent instructions for residents in low-lying areas to evacuate, warning that the worst was still to come.  Crews have now rescued more than 400 people from their homes, rooftops and roads and others are preparing to evacuate their property.

MIDDLE EAST

Dubai is wrestling with the aftermath of extraordinary torrential rains that flooded the desert city, with people describing harrowing stories of spending the night in their cars, and air passengers enduring chaotic scenes at airports.  Up to 259.5mm (10.2in) of rain fell on the usually arid country of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, the most since records began 75 years ago. The state-run WAM news agency called the rains on Tuesday “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949”.  As the sun returned on Wednesday, along with it came stories of people stuck in cars and offices through an arduous night.  “It was one of the most horrific situations I had ever experienced,” said one Dubai resident in his 30s, who did not want to give his name, after his 15-minute commute turned into a 12-hour ordeal on flooded roads.

SOUTH AMERICA

The death toll from what authorities call the worst climate disaster ever to strike southern Brazil has risen to 90, after ferocious rain flooded huge stretches of Rio Grande do Sul state, displacing more than 155,000 people and forcing the closure of the main airport in the country’s fifth biggest city.  Photographs of the Porto Alegre airport, one of Brazil’s busiest, showed its main terminal had been completely inundated and a cargo plane parked in an expanse of water next to a pair of semi-submerged boarding stairs.  At least 361 people have been injured and 131 are missing as a result of what state governor Eduaro Leite called his state’s “biggest ever climate catastrophe”. More than 48,000 people are living in dozens of shelters.

Torrential rainstorms in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul have caused the worst flooding the country has seen in 80 years, many deaths and the displacement of thousands of families. Central parts of the state were hit the hardest after the storms began last Monday, with unofficial weather stations in the area recording 50-100cm (20-40in) of rain over the past week.  Widespread floods and landslides have caused major damage to homes and infrastructure, most alarmingly triggering the partial collapse of a small hydroelectric dam on Thursday, which sent a 2-metre-high wave through the surrounding area. At least 57 deaths have been reported and 24,000 people have been displaced, alongside an estimated 500,000 being without power and clean water. This part of South America is no stranger to major rainfall; Rio Grande do Sul has experienced flooding three other times in the past year. This is because the polar and tropical regions of the atmosphere meet around this latitude, resulting in a zone of high pressure that delivers long periods of dry weather punctuated with heavy bursts of rain. However, this event has been particularly devastating, with experts attributing the heightened rainfall to the combination of global heating and the recent El Niño phenomenon, during which waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean become warmer.

INDONESIA

A flood and a landslide have hit Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing at least 14 people, according to officials.  The landslide hit Luwu regency in South Sulawesi on Friday just after 1am local time, Abdul Muhari, spokesperson of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB), said in a statement.  Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, with the problem aggravated in some places by deforestation.  Torrential rain pounding the area since Thursday triggered a landslide, said local rescue chief Mexianus Bekabel.   Floods up to three meters (10ft) have affected 13 sub-districts as water and mud covered the area.  A search and rescue team worked to evacuate residents using rubber boats and other vehicles. More than 100 people were evacuated to mosques or relatives’ homes and more than 1,300 families were affected with authorities trying to evacuate them.  The national disaster management agency said more than 100 houses were seriously damaged and 42 were swept away, while four roads and onebridge were damaged.

Heavy rains triggered flash floods and caused torrents of cold lava and mud to flow down a volcano’s slopes on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 41 people and leaving more than a dozen others missing, officials have said.  Monsoon rains and a major mudslide from a cold lava flow on Mount Marapi caused a river to breach its banks and tear through mountainside villages in four districts in West Sumatra province just before midnight on Saturday. The floods swept away people and submerged more than 100 houses and buildings, national disaster management agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said on Sunday.  Cold lava, also known as lahar, is a mixture of volcanic material and pebbles that flow down a volcano’s slopes in the rain..