Aerial surveillance deployed in Machakos as tens are rescued in marooned homes

The Star Kenya

Police have intensified security surveillance as the multiagency team continues with rescue missions in Machakos County. https://rb.gy/qsouml

Transcript

00:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:10 People should move away from the Ati River.

00:20 Ati River, I can say, the banks have swollen.

00:26 We have never seen that again.

00:28 So we're asking our people, it's very hot now and we know it's going to rain.

00:31 So we're asking our people to move away from the river.

00:34 And especially these ones who are on this side,

00:36 they should just move to other places and not sleep here.

00:39 Because we do not know what will happen maybe overnight.

00:41 We are lucky this came in the morning.

00:43 If it had come at night, then it would have been something else.

00:46 The people have been rescued here.

00:48 We have spoken to them.

00:50 Some of them will stay with their relatives.

00:51 The ones that do not have anywhere to stay, we will find a place for

00:54 them to stay and feed them.

00:56 We are already providing food and cloth and relief supplies here.

01:02 Yeah, medication, they are well taken care of.

01:04 I want to tell the developers, and here we are not going to mince our words.

01:08 We want to tell the developers, you know the law.

01:12 You know how far you should be from the river.

01:15 So we are going to enforce that.

01:17 The national government and the county government will enforce that because we

01:21 are not going to allow our people to die because of things that should be avoided.

01:26 Around 7 in the morning, the flood started.

01:31 I heard people screaming.

01:32 So we had to leave the riverbanks and go straight to Zimbabwe.

01:37 So within a short period of time, like 20 minutes, the flood was here every month.

01:42 So we were trapped, we couldn't leave, we couldn't do anything.

01:46 We went to the hotel, and the county government came and rescued us.

01:53 But so many people were stuck inside the house.

01:55 Say like 101 people.

01:57 Today we just woke up to a bit of a shock with the flood that happened.

02:03 And it's a shock because yesterday we had a very peaceful night.

02:07 In fact, it didn't rain that much, and we were not expecting this.

02:12 So this morning when I was at work, I just received a call from my wife and

02:15 she said, I think there's a fence just aside our house that has been broken by

02:21 the water, and the water was flowing in very high volumes towards the compound.

02:25 And so she heard some screams from neighbors trying to evacuate their houses

02:31 and their cars.

02:32 But by the time she got downstairs trying to get outside the house,

02:36 the water was already at the door.

02:38 So she couldn't even open the door.

02:40 So what happened is she just took the kids.

02:44 So she's in the house with two househelps and five kids.

02:48 So she took the kids and the house help and they went upstairs.

02:50 When it comes to a number of houses, so the whole block facing this side,

02:54 all the houses, all the roads have been affected.

02:57 That's about, probably about 60 or so houses or more.

03:01 The amount of property that have been lost, I don't know,

03:05 it could be in millions.

03:07 Cuz the houses, there are some cars that were submerged.

03:10 I think when I came here at nine, I couldn't even see my wife's car.

03:14 It was submerged.

03:15 All the cars, some of them have even popped the airbags.

03:19 We've seen some of them malfunction.

03:20 So the amount of property that have been lost, I can say it's probably in millions.

03:24 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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