Last year's Mai Mahiu tragedy was preventable

One year on, families in Mai Mahiu are still reeling from the pain of losing or missing loved ones in a flash flood. Tales of a mother never finding her two-year-old child to bury, or a boy who won’t make it back to school due to a persistent pain in the leg since the April 2024 dawn landslide, remain a stark reminder of how things can change in the twinkling of an eye. 

At least 60 people died in the disaster. Hundreds were displaced. A year later, families have not been adequately compensated despite government promises. Some of the 84 people described as missing after the disaster never resurfaced.

Initial reports had sounded like a dam in Kijabe, which is on higher ground, had filled up due to the continuous heavy rains, and burst, pouring its content downhill and sweeping land and the hitherto intact villages below. Later on, government authorities were reported as saying a torrent of water and debris overwhelmed a blocked railway culvert, and caused the catastrophic flash flood.

This was actually something to go by. That clearly makes the disaster foreseeable and preventable. A conspiracy of systemic governance lapses and climate change impacts made it to happen. Someone abdicated their duty to ensure the culvert, a railway drainage tunnel, always remained clear. There needed to have been consistent infrastructure repairs and maintenance to prevent obstruction of the water outlet by trees, stones and soil.

The Kenya Meteorological Department had given a forecast, indicating above-normal rainfall courtesy of El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Kenya is a leading voice in climate action. President William Ruto has persistently pushed for sustainable development that incorporates climate action. In 2024, Kenya had holidays to plant trees, as a means to meet the 15 billion trees by 2032 goal.

However, the nexus between climate change impacts and infrastructure is equally a call to spare resources for maintenance, as a means to disaster preparedness and mitigation. Many a time, the magnitude of casualties in a disaster depend on the infrastructure, preparedness and response.

Prioritising resilient infrastructure is not a luxury. It must be supported by proper urban planning, with increased tree cover for land to absorb water efficiently while at the same time holding the soil together.

What is the national budget for such maintenance? How is work coordinated within government so that rundown bridges, blocked sewer lines, and drainage systems are cleared before disasters? Did the community at the location of the culvert know the risk its blockage posed?

Meanwhile, a High Grand Falls Dam project has stalled nearby. Experts say had it been complete, it would have come in handy as a flood control infrastructure, and prevented the Mai Mahiu disaster.

The problem was a convergence of human-ignorance and natural factors. This forms part of poor governance. But we can learn lessons from it and readjust. It also means investing in resilient infrastructure, encouraging community engagement and enforcing existing regulations or amending them as is necessary.

We cannot ignore disastrous weather in the face of a worsening climate crisis, as has been consistently been projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other studies. We cannot even begin to think we can control the weather. But we can control our preparedness for- and response to disasters.

Meanwhile, can government return to the victims and ease their pain! The many promises will not save victims from the poverty, food insecurity, health and other challenges that followed the Mai Mahiu disaster. Government presence after the disaster seemed like disaster response. It has become a bad debt.