Recently, the tourist boats that typically navigate Kenya’s famous Lake Naivasha have taken on a new function: rescuing people from flood-stricken homes.
Residents of the modest Kihoto district are shocked by this year’s unprecedented scale despite the lake’s water level having increased by more than a decade due to repeated flooding.
Residents Rose Alero and Rose Alero both expressed disappointment that this has never occurred before.
The Rift Valley lake has reportedly widened 1.5 kilometers (about 1 mile) of its inland elevation.
Alero, a 51-year-old grandmother, observed that many neighbors had fallen ill and that “people are suffering.”
Toilets are overflowing throughout the district, while water in her home reaches waist height.
People are “stuck,” meaning they have nowhere to go.
The destruction is extensive: police stations are submerged in floating vegetation, churches are destroyed, and hundreds of homes are completely submerged.
Children jumped on improvised rafts to evacuate a school during a sudden water surge.
According to Joyce Cheche, the county’s director of disaster risk management, rising waters have displaced 7, 000 people, which also threaten wildlife and economic activity.
Cheche claimed that the county has implemented health measures and provided transportation assistance, but no financial compensation has yet been given.
Workers in the crucial flower export industry avoid work because they fear cholera and landslides.
She also emphasized the danger of interacting with the lake’s numerous hippos.
Cheche admitted, “We didn’t anticipate it.”
Acacia trunks that were once lush are now submerged in waters that advance about 1 meter (3. 3 feet) each day at the lake’s edge.
Other Rift Valley lakes are affected by this phenomenon, which has caused thousands of people’s displacement.
Numerous studies primarily attribute this to climate change-driven increases in rainfall.
However, Kenyan geologist John Lagat, regional manager of the state-owned Geothermal Development Corporation, points to the lakes’ location along a significant geological fault as the primary cause.
Before shifting tectonic plates, which had reduced the lake’s diameter by only 1 km (0,6 miles) by 1921, English settlers arrived in the late 19th century.
Lagat noted that increased rainfall and land degradation from population growth also play a “substantial” role in flooding as underground outflows became increasingly sealed by tectonic movements, trapping water.
Alero, who lives in a flood-scarred home, expressed her concern for the upcoming rainy season.
