More than 8,500 homes have been affected by floods in Tana River county since last month, Kenya Red Cross disaster management officer Michael Alyabei has said.
While touring the area yesterday, Garsen MP Ibrahim Sane asked the government to intervene quickly to help the residents. Sane said those affected should be compensated as they lost all their property in the disaster.
“The situation is bad, something has to be done quickly. People are sleeping in the cold and there could be an outbreak of diseases soon," he said.
Sane thanked the Kenya Red Cross for their support and asked the Ministry of Special Programmes to intervene. The MP said Kengen contributes to the floods disaster each year because it releases water downstream.
He said the residents were displaced 21 days ago and are yet to receive relief from the government. The highly affected area is the Tana delta district where more than 6,000 families affected and it is feared the number could increase as the water levels were increasing on a daily basis.
Other areas affected by the floods are Bura with an estimated 2000 families that were displaced and Hola which has 500 families left homeless. Thousands of farms are completely submerged.
Those affected currently require medical care, relief support and shelter. On Monday four villages were marooned and another three villages completely swept away by the floods.
Kenya Red cross officials had a hard time accessing the areas as the villages could not be reached by boat. Garsen town has also not been spared and there are fears the water will get into the town which has an estimated population of 70,000.
Families who had fled from in Gamba have been sleeping in the cold for the past three days and are still trying to construct temporary structures to sleep.
Bule Gedi a victim of the floods said they urgently need mosquito nets, blankets, water purifiers, drugs and clean water. Alyabei said there was need for more urgent measures to be taken so that people are moved to safety.
He said the number of affected households in the region may rise. Alyabei urged residents to move to safer grounds to prevent further loss of lives.