'It can kill us': Kenyans in Kibera Brace for El Niño Floods as Forecasters Warn of Record Strength

Halfway up the six-foot corrugated iron wall of Agnes Shikoli's home in Kibera, the floods of March left a line she can still point to. Her house stands a couple of metres from the Ngong river, which cuts through one of Kenya's largest informal settlements in the capital, Nairobi. A television that was submerged still sits broken in the corner. A photograph of her sister, Beatrice Khalayi, is tucked out of sight.

Khalayi, 58, was one of more than 60 people across Kenya who died when intense rains caused widespread destruction during the long rainy season. Shikoli says someone phoned to tell her that her sister had been electrocuted after her house flooded. She keeps the picture far from her, she says, because looking at it makes her uneasy.

Now the short rainy season has begun, and forecasters are warning that this year's El Niño could be among the strongest on record. Shikoli, 62, says she is afraid. The houses in Kibera are not made of stone, she says; they can fall on people, or the water can drown them.

Outside her door, groups of men and women in high-visibility vests are shovelling and raking garbage out of the riverbed and carrying it far from the water. The work belongs to a programme called Climate Worx, run under the office of President William Ruto, which aims to rehabilitate Nairobi's rivers. Such clean-ups have intensified since August, when warnings about the likely scale of El Niño grew. Similar efforts to unclog drains are under way across the city, which is built on hilly ground and crossed by three major rivers.

The task is enormous. Blocked drains and inadequate sewage systems were widely blamed for the high death toll earlier this year, because the excess rain had nowhere to go. Bramwell Simiyu, Nairobi County's disaster management chief, says the drains were left untouched for many years. The system was designed some 30 years ago for about 2.5 million residents, he says, but the city now holds about 7 million by day and 5.5 million at night. Upgrading sewerage and drainage in full would take up to $192m, and there is little sign that the cash-strapped national or city governments can raise it.

Informal settlements near rivers, such as Kibera and Mathare, are hit hardest. Houses often sit only a few metres from the water, and some, like Shikoli's, are on the riverbank slopes as the settlements keep expanding. Flash floods can sweep them away. A government programme, the Nairobi River Basin Regeneration, found that weak enforcement of regulations near rivers raises flood risk, and it recommended a protective buffer and humane relocation where necessary. Rising poverty, however, has pushed people toward the water. Simiyu puts the worst case at about 100,000 low-income residents at risk, and a moderate projection at about 5,000 households, or 20,000 people. Anyone forced out would go to 167 designated holding grounds stocked with relief food and supplies.

Nobody knows when the rains will arrive or how heavy they will be. Kenya's meteorological department notes that November is normally the peak of the short rains, which usually run from October to December. In September, the regional body Igad gave an 81% probability of a very strong El Niño during October to December 2026. The heavy rains have not yet materialised, but experts remain worried. Comparisons are being drawn with 1997-1998, when floods devastated Somalia and Kenya. Forecaster Jemima Gacheru says Indian Ocean temperatures now resemble those of that year. A strong Pacific El Niño is combining with a positive Indian Ocean dipole, sometimes called the "Indian Niño", and she expects enhanced rainfall over several parts of the country.

The International Organization for Migration warns that almost 900,000 people in Kenya could be forced from their homes this year, mostly by predicted floods. In Somalia, the disaster agency says 1.2 million people are at risk of displacement from floods and drought. The 1998 floods there killed 2,000 people and drove 250,000 from their homes, according to the FAO, and destroyed up to 80% of crops in some areas. Elsewhere, forecasters fear extreme heat and long dry spells in West Africa, the Sahel and southern Africa.

In Kibera, Shikoli's family is preparing for the worst. Council officials have told them to leave the riverbank until the rains pass, but she earns about $2 a day selling groundnuts and fruit from a stall beside the river. She wants to move, she says, but has no means. They will have to persevere, she says, and leave it to God. November's rainfall will show how far the preparations reach.