'Nature fights back' as Kenya battles deluge
By Basillioh Rukanga
Everything feels sodden in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and beyond.
It seems as if the rain has been falling without respite for six weeks, and the impact has been devastating.
So far more than 120 people have lost their lives, including at least 50 after a dam burst on Monday a short distance from Nairobi.
This is the wet season, but the city has been experiencing far more rainfall than what is normally expected, which has been put down to the El Niño weather phenomenon.
Rivers and sewers have overflowed, roads have become waterways and homes have been destroyed.
Flooding in the city is not unusual but the sheer scale of this year’s deluge has exposed longer term problems with the way Nairobi has developed.
“You can’t contain nature. It doesn’t work like that,” Prof Alfred Omenya, an urban planning and environment expert, told the BBC.
He says that much of the city sits on top the Nairobi River’s floodplain, which cuts through the capital. A number of other rivers and streams also flow through Nairobi.
