Report: Heavy rainfall in 2023 caused floods, killed over 12,000 in Libya, Kenya

A new report has shown that high rainfall levels contributed to major flooding events in 2023 which killed over 12,000 in Libya, Kenya and other countries in Africa.

According to the report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the continent suffered the largest deaths from floods, which displaced about four million persons in 2023.

Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique were countries most affected by these floods.

The report stated that in Libya, a flooding incident in September 2023 collapsed two dams, with the resulting toll claiming 11,000 lives and affecting 22 per cent of the population.

Other countries in the region also experienced extreme floods which resulted in over 1,600 additional deaths.

The WMO noted that the rainfall and flooding events are related to the disturbing phenomenon of climate change, with droughts and the melting of ice caps witnessed in other regions of the world.

It said that such events were influenced by naturally occurring climate conditions like “the transition from La Niña to El Niño in mid-2023” and “human-induced” climate change.

“Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change. We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies,” Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of WMO, said in a statement accompanying the report.

“Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action.

“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water.”