NAIROBI: Two months of relentless rains have submerged villages and farms and sent rivers of mud crashing into houses across East Africa, with at least 265 killed, according to an AFP tally, as meteorologists warn of more to come.
The extreme downpours have affected close to two million people and washed away tens of thousands of livestock in Kenya, Somalia, Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia.
With a tropical storm headed for Somalia and more rain forecast across the region in the coming weeks, fears are rising over waterborne diseases and the prospect of hunger as crops are destroyed.
In Burundi, 38 people died on Wednesday night after heavy rains triggered landslides that swept through hillside communities in the northwest of the country, according to a provisional police toll on Thursday.
“It happened in the night, when everyone was at home, and landslides hit three very steep hills and buried everything in their path,” a witness told AFP.
“Whole families were buried alive in their homes or in the fields. It was terrifying.”
Kenya has been hard hit with 132 killed and 17,000 displaced, schools, roads, and health centers flooded, and water systems clogged across the country, government spokesman Cyrus Oguna said in a statement on Tuesday.
The “weather forecast has indicated that the current rains are not expected to cease until the end of December 2019,” the statement said.
In South Sudan, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said nearly a million people have been affected by floodwaters which submerged whole towns, compounding an already dire humanitarian situation after six years of war.
Flooding has also affected 570,000 people in Somalia, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The European humanitarian agency ECHO meanwhile warned of a tropical storm due to hit northeastern Somalia on Friday, bringing the threat of more flash floods.
In Tanzania, 55 people have died, according to an AFP tally of police figures, including 30 in flash floods in the northeast in October, 15 whose car was swept away by floodwaters in the town of Tanga, and 10 who drowned last month in northern Mwanza.
In Uganda, eight people have died and over 80,000 have been displaced by flooding and mudslides this week, Disaster Preparedness Minister Musa Ecweru said in a statement.
Days of heavy rainfall on Mount Elgon on Tuesday caused “multiple landslides in... Bududa district killing four people, injuring five and displacing over 6,000 people.”
In Sironko district, also on Mount Elgon, “two adults and two children were killed” and over 4,000 people affected.
“The risk of more flooding and landslides is real,” the minister warned.
Ethiopia has also been affected,with 22 people dying in a landslidein the south of the country in October.
Djibouti has also experienced unusually heavy rains, with a joint government and United Nations press statement reporting that some areas received “the equivalent of 2 years of rainfall occurred in one day” in heavy downpours two weeks ago.
“Some 10 people (7 children) have reportedly been killed,” said the statement, adding that 250,000 were affected countrywide.
The extreme weather is blamed on the Indian Ocean Dipole — a climate system defined by the difference in sea surface temperature between the western and eastern areas of the ocean.
At the moment, the ocean around East Africa is far warmer than usual, resulting in higher evaporation and moist air flowing inwards over the continent as rain: the hallmarks of a “positive” dipole.
Scientists say the strength of this dipole is of a magnitude not seen in years, perhaps even decades.
These waters around East Africa have been about two degrees warmer than those of the eastern Indian Ocean near Australia — an imbalance well beyond the norm.
The heavy rains have also wrought destruction in central Africa, with scores killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including 41 in the capital Kinshasa last week.
In the Central African Republic, OCHA says around 100,000 people have been displaced.
At least 265 dead in floods, landslides as rains batter East Africa
At least 265 dead in floods, landslides as rains batter East Africa
- Scientists say the strength of this dipole is of a magnitude not seen in years, perhaps even decades
- “The risk of more flooding and landslides is real,” the minister warned
US wildfires pose fresh threat despite winds easing
- The National Weather Service said that conditions in the Los Angeles area would improve through the weekend, with sustained winds slowing to about 20 mph, gusting between 35 mph and 50 mph
LOS ANGELES: The largest of the raging wildfires that have devastated parts of Los Angeles this week was reported to have shifted direction on Saturday, triggering more evacuation orders and posing a new challenge to exhausted firefighters.
Six simultaneous blazes that have ripped across Los Angeles County neighborhoods since Tuesday have killed at least 11 people and damaged or destroyed 10,000 structures. The toll is expected to mount when firefighters are able to conduct house-to-house searches.
The fierce Santa Ana winds that fanned the infernos eased on Friday night. But the Palisades Fire on the city’s western edge was heading in a new direction, prompting another evacuation order as it edged toward the Brentwood neighborhood and the San Fernando Valley foothills, the Los Angeles Times reported.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Death toll rises to 11 with more fatalities expected.
• 10,000 structures burned as neighborhoods turn to ash.
• Thousands homeless, public health emergency declared.
• Insurers face billions in claims, Biden vows support.
“The Palisades fire has got a new significant flare-up on the eastern portion and continues to northeast,” LA Fire Department Captain Erik Scott told local station KTLA, according to a report on the LA Times website.
The fire, the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles, has razed whole neighborhoods to the ground, leaving just the smoldering ruins of what had been people’s homes and possessions.
Some 153,000 people remained under evacuation orders and another 166,800 faced evacuation warnings with a curfew in place for all evacuation zones, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.
Seven neighboring states, the federal government and Canada have rushed aid to California, bolstering aerial teams dropping water and fire retardant on the flaming hills and crews on the ground attacking fire lines with hand tools and hoses.
The National Weather Service said that conditions in the Los Angeles area would improve through the weekend, with sustained winds slowing to about 20 mph, gusting between 35 mph and 50 mph.
Officials have declared a public health emergency due to the thick, toxic smoke.
Pacific Palisades residents who ventured back to their devastated neighborhoods on Friday were shocked to find brick chimneys looming over charred waste and burnt-out vehicles as acrid smoke lingered in the air.
“This was a house that was loved,” Kelly Foster, 44, said while combing through the rubble where her house once stood.
Foster’s 16-year-old daughter, Ada, said she tried to get inside but “I just became sick. I just couldn’t even ... Yeah, it’s hard.”
In Rick McGeagh’s Palisades neighborhood, only six of 60 homes survived, and all that remained standing at his ranch house was a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Everything else is ash and rubble,” said McGeagh, 61, a commercial real estate broker who, along with his wife, raised three children at their home.
On Friday morning, hundreds of people streamed into a parking lot near the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena for donated clothing, diapers and bottled water.
Denise Doss, 63, said she was anxious to return to her destroyed home in Altadena to see if anything was salvageable, but officials stopped her due to safety concerns.
“At least to say goodbye until we can rebuild. I will let God lead me,” Doss said.
Many Altadena residents said they were worried government resources would go to wealthier areas and that insurers might short-change those who cannot afford to contest denials of fire claims.
Beyond those who lost their homes, tens of thousands remained without power, and millions of people were exposed to poorer air quality, as the fires lofted traces of metals, plastics and other synthetic materials.
Private forecaster AccuWeather estimated the damage and economic loss at $135 billion to $150 billion, portending an arduous recovery and soaring homeowners’ insurance costs.
President Joe Biden has declared the fires a major disaster and said the US government would reimburse 100 percent of the recovery for the next six months.
Russia says US risks global energy instability with new sanctions
- “Of course Washington’s hostile actions will not be left without reaction,” said Moscow’s foreign ministry
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier told reporters that the Biden administration was trying to leave Trump “as heavy a legacy as possible“
MOSCOW: Moscow on Saturday accused the US of being ready to risk global energy instability with new wide-reaching sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.
The US and the UK on Friday announced new sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, including oil giant Gazprom Neft, just days before President Joe Biden leaves office.
Moscow’s foreign ministry said in a statement that on the eve of Biden’s “inglorious time in power,” Washington was trying to “cause at least some harm to Russia’s economy even at the cost of destabilising world markets.”
“Of course Washington’s hostile actions will not be left without reaction,” it added.
In a reference to the California wildfires, Moscow accused Biden’s administration of leaving behind “scorched earth,” or total destruction, for incoming US President Donald Trump — since he cannot cancel the sanctions without Congress approval.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier told reporters that the Biden administration was trying to leave Trump “as heavy a legacy as possible.”
The US Treasury Department said Friday it was designating more than 180 ships as well as Russian oil majors Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, fulfilling “the G7 commitment to reduce Russian revenues from energy.”
Gazprom Neft on Friday slammed the sanctions as “baseless” and “illegitimate,” Russian state news agencies reported.
Biden’s deputy national security adviser for international economics, Daleep Singh, called the sanctions “the most significant” yet on Russia’s energy sector, which he said was “by far the largest source of revenue for (President Vladimir) Putin’s war.”
The Russian ministry on Saturday accused the US of seeking to “hinder as far as possible or even make impossible any bilateral economic ties, including with US business.”
It said Washington was “sacrificing to this the interests... of European allies,” which are “forced to switch over to more expensive and unreliable American supplies.”
It also accused Washington of “ignoring” the views of its own population on rising energy prices once the presidential election was over.
Two trams collide in France’s Strasbourg, 20 injured
- The trams collided near Strasbourg’s rail station.
- A large security perimeter has been set up in front of the station
STRASBOURG, France: Two trams collided in a tunnel in the eastern French city of Strasbourg on Saturday, injuring at least twenty people, the authorities said.
Strasbourg was the first major French city to re-introduce its tram service, in 1994. Since then, there have been no major accidents.
“Twenty people” have been injured, said a spokesman for the prefecture, citing a preliminary estimate. He added that the cause of the accident had not yet been established.
The trams collided near Strasbourg’s rail station.
A large security perimeter has been set up in front of the station, where numerous ambulances have taken up position, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.
A video posted by a witness on social media shows a chaotic scene with the two trams significantly damaged in the tunnel near the station.
One of the trams appears to have derailed as a result of the impact.
Syrian migrant dies trying to cross Channel: French authorities
- Several dozen migrants tried to get into the water on the beach at Sangatte, on the northern coast of France
LILLE: A 19-year-old Syrian migrant perished while trying to cross the Channel to Britain, French authorities said on Saturday, adding he was probably crushed to death in a leaking dinghy.
It was the first reported death at sea of a migrant seeking to travel to Britain from France so far this year.
Several dozen migrants tried to get into the water on the beach at Sangatte, on the northern coast of France, on Friday night, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture told AFP.
The prefecture said that “a few minutes later” the group disembarked from the leaking dinghy. On the floor of the boat, a Syrian man was found, the prefecture said, adding that he had suffered cardiac arrest.
He had “probably” been crushed to death.
“This was the first death at sea in 2025,” the prefecture said.
The victim, 19, was pronounced dead at 5:24 am, the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor, Guirec Le Bras, said separately.
A forensic investigation will be carried out to determine the exact cause of death.
Citing members of law enforcement, the prosecutor said the small boat carried around 60 migrants.
A 33-year-old Syrian-born man was arrested and placed in police custody, according to the prosecutor.
According to the prefecture, 77 people died trying to reach Britain in flimsy inflatable boats last year, making it the deadliest year for migrants who are taking ever greater risks to evade Britain’s border control.
Associations providing help to migrants recorded 89 fatalities last year. The count includes migrants who died at sea and on the coast of northern France.
The groups planned a march in Calais on Saturday to denounce security policies they say are responsible for the mounting death toll.
Due to unfavorable weather conditions, only 61 migrants arrived in the United Kingdom on small boats between 1 and 10 January, according to British authorities.
More than 36,800 people were detected crossing the Channel last year, a 25 percent increase from the 29,437 who arrived in 2023, according to provisional figures from the interior ministry.
Immigration, both irregular and regular, was a major issue in the UK’s July general election, which brought Labour to power but also saw a breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK party.
According to Downing Street, illegal migration was one of the issues discussed by French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday.
Denmark sent Trump team private messages on Greenland, Axios reports
- Axios said that the Danish government wanted to convince Trump that his security concerns could be addressed without claiming Greenland
- The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the Axios report
COPENHAGEN: Denmark sent private messages to US President-elect Donald Trump’s team expressing willingness to discuss boosting security in Greenland or increasing the US military presence there without claiming the island, Axios reported on Saturday, citing two sources.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has described US control of Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, as an “absolute necessity.” He did not dismiss the potential use of military or economic means, including tariffs against Denmark.
Axios said that the Danish government wanted to convince Trump that his security concerns could be addressed without claiming Greenland.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the Axios report.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said earlier this week that she had asked for a meeting with Trump, but did not expect it to happen before his inauguration. Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede too said he was ready to speak with Trump but urged respect for the island’s independence aspirations.
Denmark has previously said that Greenland is not for sale.
