Tourist boats that normally travel across Kenya’s famous Lake Naivasha have recently taken on a new role: rescuing hundreds of people from submerged homes.
Although the lake’s water level has been rising for more than a decade due to frequent floods, residents of the modest Kihoto district are stunned by this year’s unprecedented scale.
“This has never happened before,” said resident Rose Alero.
According to local officials, the Rift Valley lake has expanded by an unprecedented 1.5 km (about 1 mile) inland.
“People are suffering,” said grandmother Alero, 51, adding that several neighbors have fallen ill.
The water in his house has reached waist-deep, while toilets in the entire district are filled to the brim.
“People are trapped… they have no place to go.”
The devastation is widespread: hundreds of homes are completely submerged under water, churches are destroyed, and police stations are submerged, surrounded by floating vegetation.
During a sudden rise in water, children boarded makeshift boats and evacuated a school.
Nakuru County disaster risk management chief Joyce Cheche estimates that 7,000 people have been displaced by the rising waters, which have also affected wildlife and threatened tourism and commerce.
The county has provided transportation assistance and implemented health measures, Cheche said, though has not yet offered financial compensation.
Workers in the important flower export sector are avoiding work due to fear of cholera and landslides.
He also highlighted the danger of encountering the lake’s numerous hippos.
“We didn’t see this coming,” Cheche admitted.
At the lake’s edge, the bare trunks of acacia trees, once lush, now stand submerged in water, moving about 1 meter (3.3 ft) per day.
The event affected other Rift Valley lakes and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Many studies attribute this mainly to increased rainfall due to climate change.
However, Kenyan geologist John Lagat, regional manager of the state-owned Geothermal Development Corporation, cites tectonics as the main cause, noting the lakes’ position along a major geological fault.
When the British arrived in the late 19th century, the lake was even larger, but shifting tectonic plates reduced its diameter to only 1 km (0.6 mi) by 1921.
Subsequent tectonic movements rapidly sealed underground outflows, trapping water, Lagat explained, though he acknowledged that land erosion from increased rainfall and population growth also plays a “substantial” role in flooding.
“We are very worried,” Alero said from his flooded home, fearing the upcoming rainy season.
“We can’t tell what will happen.”