The death toll from floods and landslides in northern Tanzania following torrential rains over the weekend has risen to more than 50, with 750 acres of farmland destroyed, the president's office said on Monday.Update December 6
Zuhura Yunus, spokesperson for President Samia Suluhu Hassan's office said in a statement that the landslides and floods had affected 1,150 households, or 5,600 people.
Severe flooding caused by El Nino and the Indian Ocean Dipole weather phenomena has killed hundreds of people in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes since seasonal rains began in October.
At least 65 people have been killed in landslides and flooding triggered by heavy rainfall in northern Tanzania, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Tuesday, revising the death toll of 68 given by regional officials a day earlier.
Torrential downpours over the weekend washed away vehicles and brought down buildings in the hillside town of Katesh, 300km (185 miles) north of the capital, Dodoma.
"Two more bodies were found in the ongoing search and now the death toll has reached 65," Majaliwa said.
Images broadcast on television showed debris from houses, including furniture, strewn across streets, with key roads, power lines and communication networks disrupted.
"From around five in the morning [on Sunday], I heard loud bangs outside the house. When we tried to escape, it was too late because mud, trees, and stones were rolling from the mountain," said a man named James, who lost his wife and daughter in the disaster.
Some 5,600 people have been displaced by the landslides, said Mobhare Matinyi, a government spokesperson.
Rashid Ntandu, 24, lost his house in the disaster and found shelter in a school in Katesh which has been turned into a refuge centre.
"I believe there are more bodies covered by mud," he said.
Comment: The last tweet nearly got it. The jet stream is becoming chaotic which tends to allow Arctic air masses to flow much farther south than heretofore seen. Yet another inconvenient truth for the #GlobalBoilers