The death toll from last weekend’s floods and landslides has risen to 76. President Samia Suluhu Hassan cut short her visit to COP28 in Dubai to assess the damage in the northern part of the country, considering this catastrophe as “a wake-up call” for the government.
Returning urgently from COP28 in Dubai to manage the consequences of floods in her own country, the Tanzanian president witnessed the damage caused by heavy rains in several regions, destroying buildings, roads, and electricity and communication infrastructure.
A Wake-Up Call
During her visit to Kadesh, a particularly affected hillside town 300 km north of the capital, Samia Suluhu Hassan promised that the government would participate in the reconstruction. She also stated that this catastrophe was “a wake-up call” for the government, which must now be prepared to detect early signs of such disasters to alert the population in time.
El Niño
Floods and landslides have caused 76 deaths and displaced 5,600 people in Tanzania, after already claiming hundreds of lives and displacing over 2 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.
Since October, with the return of the El Niño climate phenomenon, much of East Africa, already weakened by three years of drought, has been hit by these floods, with scientists attributing the doubling of intensity to global warming.