Day: November 7, 2021

The withered carcasses of livestock are reminders that drought has descended yet again in northern Kenya, the latest in a series of climate shocks rippling through the Horn of Africa.

As world leaders address a global climate summit in Glasgow, pastoralists watch their beloved animals suffer from lack of water and food. Yusuf Abdullahi says he has lost 40 goats.

“If they die, we all die,” he says.

Kenya’s government has declared a national disaster in 10 of its 47 counties. The United Nations says more than 2 million people are severely food insecure. And with people trekking farther in search of food and water, observers warn that tensions among communities could sharpen.

Wildlife have begun to die, too, says the chair of the Subuli Wildlife Conservancy, Mohamed Sharmarke.

“The heat on the ground tells you the sign of starvation we’re facing,” he says.

Experts warn that such climate shocks will become more common across Africa, which contributes the least to global warming, but will suffer from it most.

“We do not have a spare planet in which we will seek refuge once we have succeeded in destroying this one,” the executive director of East Africa’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development, Workneh Gebeyehu, said last month while opening a regional early warning climate center in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta agreed.

“Africa, while currently responsible for a negligible amount of total global greenhouse gas emissions, is under significant threat from climate change,” he said at the center’s opening. The continent is responsible for just 4% of global emissions.

Kenyatta was among the African leaders speaking at the global climate summit as they urged more attention and billions of dollars in financial support for the African continent.

Source: Voice of America

The death toll in a high-rise collapse in Lagos, Nigeria, has risen to 42 while the number of survivors increased to 15, state authorities have announced.

The cause of Monday’s disaster is still unknown, but building collapses are common in Africa’s most populous country, where millions live in dilapidated properties and construction standards are routinely ignored.

“We have a total of 42 bodies that have been recovered,” Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said late Saturday.

The 21-story building under construction in the upscale Ikoyi district crumbled on Monday afternoon, trapping dozens of people working on the site.

As of Friday, the authorities had said nine people had survived, some were rescued alive, others on the ground floor managed to escape unharmed.

Over the weekend, the number of survivors increased to 15 after six more people who escaped the collapse were identified.

The total number of people on site is unknown, but Sanwo-Olu said 49 families had so far filed a missing persons report and that “DNA examination was being undertaken on some of the bodies difficult to be identified.”

The governor said money was set aside to help families cover burial fees and that financial support was also offered to survivors.

Search and rescue efforts were ongoing Saturday, the authorities said.

The governor set up an independent panel to investigate the causes of the collapse and declared three days of mourning starting on Friday.

Building collapses happen frequently in densely populated areas of Lagos, which is home to some 20 million people.

Two other smaller buildings in Lagos also collapsed on Tuesday following heavy rains, though no one was killed.

Poor workmanship and materials and a lack of official oversight are often blamed.

Source: Voice of America