NAIROBI, May 3, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The death toll from flood-related incidents
in Kenya has crossed 200 since March, the interior ministry said Friday, as a
cyclone barrelled towards the Tanzanian coast.

Torrential rains have lashed much of East Africa, triggering flooding and
landslides that has destroyed crops, swallowed homes, and displaced hundreds
of thousands of people.

Some 210 people have died in Kenya "due to severe weather conditions," the
interior ministry said in a statement, with 22 killed in the past 24 hours.

More than 165,000 people had been uprooted from their home, it added and 90
others missing, raising fears that the toll could rise higher.

Kenya and neighbouring Tanzania, where at least 155 people have been killed
in flooding, are bracing for cyclone Hidaya, bringing heavy rain, wind and
waves to their coasts.

Tanzanian authorities warned Friday that Hidaya had "strengthened to reach
the status of a full-fledged cyclone," at 3:00 am local time (0000GMT) when
it was some 400 kilometres (248 miles) from the southeastern city of Mtwara.

"Cyclone Hidaya has continued to strengthen further, with wind speeds
increasing to about 130 kilometres per hour," they said in a weather
bulletin.

Kenya's interior ministry forecast that the cyclone was likely to "bring
strong winds and large ocean waves, with heavy rainfall" expected to hit the
coast starting Sunday.

The heavier than usual rains have also claimed at least 29 lives in Burundi,
with 175 people injured, and tens of thousands displaced since September last
year, the United Nations said.

The rains have been amplified by the El Nino weather pattern -- a naturally
occurring climate phenomenon typically associated with increased heat
worldwide, leading to drought in some parts of the world and heavy downpours
elsewhere.

Late last year, more than 300 people died in rains and floods in Kenya,
Somalia and Ethiopia, just as the region was trying to recover from its worst
drought in four decades.

Cyclone season in the southwest of the Indian Ocean normally lasts from
November to April and sees around a dozen storms each year.