Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00 The heavy rains in Somalia have taken the lives of almost 100 people,
00:04 according to state news agency Sona on Saturday. It said in a post on social media 96 people had
00:10 perished. Adding the figure was confirmed by the head of the country's disaster management agency.
00:15 The constant downpours are putting fear into the country's residents, like Hawa Ali Amadin.
00:25 These floods are double compared to the previous ones.
00:31 You can't take a risk in this one.
00:38 When it's raining, we sit outside under a tent until the rain slows down.
00:53 We only come in the house when the rain slows down so that we can cook for the children.
00:57 Somalia and the rest of the East Horn of Africa have been battered by relentless heavy rains
01:13 that began in October, caused by El Nino and Indian Ocean Dipole weather phenomena.
01:19 Both are climate patterns that impact ocean surface temperatures and cause above-average
01:24 rainfall. The flooding has been described as the worst in decades, displacing 700,000 people,
01:30 according to the United Nations. The intense rains are exacerbating an already existing
01:35 humanitarian crisis caused by years of insurgency. The head of Somalia's Red Cross, Pascal Kutat,
01:41 says the worst is not over yet. We have currently a confluence still of the Indian Ocean Dipole,
01:48 of El Nino. We have a cyclone building up in the Indian Ocean. We have rains continuing in the
01:55 highlands of Ethiopia. All of that means that this is not over and it's not yet at its peak.
02:00 It's getting worse and these people are going to suffer more. In neighbouring Kenya, the floods
02:06 have so far killed 76 people, according to the Kenyan Red Cross, destroying roads and bridges,
02:12 as well as leaving many residents without shelter, drinking and food supplies, according to the
02:17 charity Doctors Without Borders.
02:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]