Gone with floods: Rising Lake Victoria upends livelihoods

Buildings that once stood defiantly along Chuowe Beach in Homabay on the shores of Lake Victoria now seem set to surrender to the unlikely fate of never being inhabited again after spending months strapped under water.

Those who called the semi-permanent structures home would have loved to continue living there, but apocalyptic floods made their choice for them.

The floods which began in early 2020 displaced more than 200,000 people in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania- the three East African countries relying on the continent’s largest fresh water lake. Lake Victoria Basin Commission says the water body rose to a new record level of 13.42 metre – marginally higher than the 13.41 metre mark recorded in 1964.

Before the floods, Willis Omulo, his family and scores of locals around his tiny village in Karachuonyo North were living quite a normal life. They tilled their farms and went fishing. Others also harvested sand, indiscriminately.

In 2018, while covering sand harvesting incidents that was turning the village into ruins, Omulo – an environmental activist at Aluora Makare CBO – happily took us around.

At the time he was living in a one bedroom house built of iron sheets, from the wall to the roof. The structure, he says, could resist flash floods common in the area during heavy rains.

Submerged farms

Last week we returned to the village to follow up on sand harvesting, and asked Omulo who has been advocating for tree planting in the village to take us to his tree farm.

The father of one pensively looked into the far distance before calling an old man to hand him a boat paddle. He then steered the canoe into the water after which we all jumped in to head to the farm.

“The farm no longer exists anymore. It was submerged,” he offered, “I don’t have a home either and for the last 12 months my family is being hosted at a nearby dispensary.”

As we silently paddled the wooden boat to what used to be his home, Omulo’s frustration as a young family man looked palpable even behind the dark glass he wore.

Alice Kiche, mother of eight, explained the night when floods came. Everyone was comfortably asleep and nothing out of the ordinary was anticipated. Then suddenly, the lake swelled before furiously tearing its ways into nearby homes and farms.

“The flash floods were so fast and strong we only managed to rescue our children and a few belongings but everything else was lost,” the widow said.

Her two-bedroom bricked house was marooned and destroyed by the floods.

“We sought refuge in a classroom at a nearby school. But moved out when schools reopened,” she explained, adding that all her plots were swallowed by the lake.

The villagers thought the floods would disappear in a week or two. But more than a year later Kiche, her children including three daughters-in-law remain without a permanent place to call home.

Experts now warn that the flood is unlikely to be a one-off occurrence.

The high water levels in the lake will be more frequent in the future due to heavy rainfalls, Dr Lydia Olaka, a geoscientist at the University of Nairobi warned – barely giving the region time to recover from one crisis, before another hits

Before the tragic floods, the beach was a lively spot, a fish landing bay and a convenient market for dealers like Kiche. Yet now it has been submerged by waist-high waters, sinking all the business in the process.

Hungry and homeless

It’s not just those that rely on the lake for their livelihoods that have been affected. Like Kiche, Elijah Ng’ong’o, 54, has spent seven months living in his neighbour’s kitchen.

Towards the end of 2019 as farmers in prepared for planting during the October-December short rains, Ng’ong’o and his fellow villagers also prepared their farms. All went well until extreme rainfall came, flooded and swept the farms away, leaving them hungry and homeless.

“We are living in very desperate conditions. I’m a farmer who doesn’t like living at the mercy of others. But I’ve become helpless after floods drowned all my harvest,” he said.

Apart from the heavy rains, which are forcing a back flow of the lake, wanton sand harvesting is partly to blame with the rapid expansion of the lake.

With the top sandy soil heavily harvested, the layer left behind is close to the water table which easily recharges during heavy rains, adding to the deluge, the villagers observed.

Besides the floods, the village also do not have electricity.

“Sand harvesters left electric poles standing dangerously, some have since collapsed, therefore Kenya Power disconnected the entire village,” said William Amuom, a resident adding that some locals now use the power lines to hang their cloths.

Because of the swelling lake, wild animals such as hippos have not only moved to live closer to the people but are also terrorising them days on end.

The flood victims said the government promised them building materials, but over 12 months later they were still holding on.

Dr Olaka explained that the rains in the region were unusually heavy and due to the Indian Ocean Dipole – a weather phenomenon caused by differences in sea surface temperatures between the eastern and western tropical Indian Ocean.

Apart from property destructions, there are concerns that floods have also increased the spread of pollution, and potential for disease.

Prof Richard Muga, health chief executive officer in Homabay, said the area was lucky to have escaped a public health crisis amid the floods and Covid-19 pandemic.

The lake’s backwash flooded toilets, which posed a deadly risk to the communities who lack piped water. Prof Muga said the county had to spend millions of shillings distributing water treatment tablets to avert water borne diseases.

So far, the national government has provided little help beyond advising residents to move, said Omulo.

“The government keeps telling us to move to higher grounds, yet they are not telling us where on the higher grounds they have reserved land for us,” he said.