FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
At least 31 people have died and 500,000 others have been forced to flee their homes in Somalia, which has been hit by floods due to incessant rains, the East African country's government minister announced on Sunday.
Authorities have confirmed the death of 31 people, "but it is possible that the death toll is higher," said Dowd Awais, the minister of information. While "half a million people have been displaced from their homes due to flooding," he added, warning that another 1.2 million citizens are at risk.
Somalia has been hit since early November by incessant rains attributed in part to the El Nino phenomenon, resulting in flooding that swept away homes and crops. The greatest destruction was recorded in the regions of Gendo (south) and Hiran (center), where the Sabelle River overflowed, flooding roads and destroying houses in the town of Balanduene.
El Nino is currently intensifying rainy season rainfall in the Horn of Africa, with consequences also affecting Ethiopia (at least 20 dead) and Kenya (at least 15 dead).
Somalia, where most of its 17 million people work in livestock and agriculture, is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change and is being hit by extreme weather events that are increasing in frequency and intensity. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stressed last week that the country was facing "once in a century" flooding, reports the US news agency newsbulletin .
According to OCHA, the situation is worsened by the combined influence of El Niño and the "Indian Dipole", the divergence of sea surface temperatures in the western and eastern parts of this ocean.
The El Niño phenomenon, which is generally associated with rising temperatures, droughts in some parts of the world and heavy rains in others, is expected to continue at least until April, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Tuesday.
This meteorological phenomenon has repeatedly caused widespread destruction in East Africa. From October 1997 to January 1998, massive floods caused by torrential rains claimed the lives of over 6,000 people in five countries in the region.
From October to November 2006, floods caused by unusual rains for the season in Somalia had killed more than 140 people due to rising waters, malaria epidemics and crocodiles. At the end of 2019, at least 265 people lost their lives and tens of thousands more were displaced during two months of incessant rains in countries of the region.
Lini një Përgjigje