Kenyans living in areas at risk of flooding or landslides will be asked to evacuate on Wednesday, the country’s president said.
William Ruto spoke in Mai Mahiu, north of Nairobi, where an overflowing reservoir has destroyed a number of houses and washed dozens of people to their deaths.
This is “not a time for guesswork,” he said, citing the forecast for further heavy rain.
“The likelihood of flooding and loss of life [their] “Life is real,” he added.
Although no definitive number has been given, an evacuation order of this magnitude will likely target many thousands of people.
The rainy season has been particularly harsh this year and weeks of flooding have killed at least 170 people.
But the Mai Mahiu disaster was the most catastrophic yet.
The reality is still sinking in for those who had hoped their missing loved ones had survived.
“My brother was in his 70s when he died after being washed away,” 62-year-old Nancy Wanjiku told the BBC.
She spoke to us while sitting on the rubble of her parents’ former home.
“My mother and father are safe, but we have lost everything,” she added.
Elsewhere, we saw a woman hunched over on the side of the road crying, lost in the news that her child’s body had been found.
Rescue workers continued the search for more dead people.
We followed them along the ravaged banks of the Ngeya River – mostly National Youth Service members in bright yellow vests, carrying shovels, rakes and sticks to poke through the branches of uprooted trees.
Some stopped in front of a huge pile of broken branches covering a destroyed house. A family of six had lived there and the workers suspected they might be buried under the mound.
They called in a bulldozer to clear away the debris, but found no evidence of a water death.
Not far from here we met Stephen Kamau, 31, who was helping a neighbor search through the remains of his house.
“I try to recover things carried away by the water and also search for missing people,” he explained.
“I woke up in a different world. Everything was flooded with water… We’re scared. My heart weighs heavy.”
Further downstream, a rescue team found a woman’s body hidden in logs at the top of a bridge. Viewers recognized her as someone who worked at a local 24-hour car wash.
Another woman, who did not identify herself, went to the site to see if her three missing sisters had been washed up there.
Her brother looked for them at a nearby hospital but came back empty-handed, she said.
She had stayed awake all night, afraid that another flood of water would rush down on her while she slept.
The horror of Sunday night’s flash flood, caused by water backing up in a ravine because a tunnel was blocked, is still alive.
David Karanja has just returned from the morgue to view the body of his 9-year-old son Paul.
He stands with his eyes downcast and his arm in a sling next to sheets of corrugated iron roofing that sway over the shell of his still-standing house as he and his 17-year-old daughter Veronica tell their story.
Like other residents of the river valley, they were awakened by the sound of rushing water at 3:00 a.m. local time (00:00 GMT) on Monday.
They rushed to turn off the power to avoid electrocution, but when David opened the door, Veronica was swept away. She says she held on to a tree branch until the water subsided.
When she got back to the house, she couldn’t immediately find her father – until she heard people calling her name.
“He was hit by a stone,” she told the BBC. “As he tried to save my brother, a stone from the top of the wall hit his hand and he let go [Paul] go, and this is the reason [Paul] drowned.”
The family lived from their livestock, which have now all disappeared. Their 900 chickens died. And out of 21 pigs, only five are left. “We have absolutely nothing right now,” Veronica said.
They are pleading for help and President Ruto promised government support as he stopped at a local school to welcome survivors.
Those gathered were told they would get help rebuilding their homes, but not near the river if experts deemed it possible they could face such destruction again.
Mr Ruto said authorities had mapped all vulnerable locations in the country prone to floods and landslides and that the army had been mobilized to help with the evacuations.
He did not say where they would go, nor exactly where the resources would come from, although he did mention collaboration with development partners.
However, the plan reflects his view that Kenya – and the East Africa region – is vulnerable to extreme weather events caused by climate change, and suggests he sees this catastrophic rainy season as part of a long-term problem.