Three people have been confirmed dead and several others’ whereabouts are not known after landslides and floods struck the area along the boundary of Elegeyo Marakwet and West Pokot counties located in the Rift Valley region in Kenya. According to Radio Citizen, a popular local media house in Kenya, the landslides occurred on the night of 18th April 2020. This comes as a result of heavy rains that are experienced all over Kenya. The affected area is hilly and hence the heavy rains triggered mass movement which covered people’s residential houses.
The Regional Commissioner Mr. George Natembeya visited the affected area accompanied by the Red Cross team as rescue missions are ongoing. Four victims have been rescued and well-wishers have been requested to help the affected residents who have been rendered homeless. The government has always been warning people to evacuate from landslide-prone areas but most of the people have been reluctant to relocate some saying that it is their ancestral land hence they cannot leave. Some people blame the government for not giving them alternative land where they can go and set up their homesteads.
Not long ago, a similar incident took place in the same region. According to Capital FM, a radio station in Kenya, 43 residents of West Pokot perished due to landslides. Another landslide case was reported in January 2020 in Taita Taveta county located in the Coastal Region in Kenya which is also a landslide-prone zone. A family of five perished in that incident after falling rocks buried their house following heavy rainfall. Indeed, landslides have been a major cause of deaths in Kenya and hence the government needs to set up a relocation plan by allocating land in safe regions to residents to prevent more deaths from taking place.
Author: David Katana
Landslides Kill Three People as Heavy Rains Pound Kenya's Rift Valley Region
