At least 31 people have died and half a million others have been forced to flee their homes in Somalia, which has been hit by widespread flooding due to incessant rains, a government minister in the east African country said on Sunday.

Authorities have confirmed the death of 31 people, “but it is possible that the death toll is higher,” said Dowd Awais, the information minister.

While “half a million people have fled their homes because of the floods,” he added, warning that another 1.2 million citizens are at risk.

Somalia has been hit since early November by incessant rains attributed in part to the El Nino phenomenon, resulting in floods that have engulfed homes and agricultural crops.

The most extensive devastation was recorded in the regions of Gendo (south) and Hiran (central), where the Sabelle River overflowed, submerging roads and destroying houses in the town of Balanduene.

El Nino is currently intensifying rainy season precipitation in the Horn of Africa, with the consequences also affecting Ethiopia (at least 20 dead) and Kenya (at least 15 dead).

Somalia, where the majority of its 17 million people work in livestock and agriculture, is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change and is being hit by extreme weather events that are increasing in frequency and intensity.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stressed last week that the country was facing “once-in-a-century” floods.

According to OCHA, the situation is worsened by the combined impact of El Niño and the “Indian Dipole”, the divergence of sea surface temperatures in the western and eastern parts of this ocean.

The El Niño phenomenon, which is generally associated with rising temperatures, droughts in some parts of the world and heavy rains in others, is expected to continue until at least April, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Tuesday.

This meteorological phenomenon has repeatedly caused widespread destruction in East Africa.

From October 1997 to January 1998, massive floods caused by torrential rains claimed the lives of over 6,000 people in five countries in the region.

From October to November 2006, floods caused by unusual for the season rainfall in Somalia had killed more than 140 people in Somalia due to rising waters, malaria epidemic and crocodiles.

At the end of 2019, at least 265 people died and tens of thousands more were displaced during two months of incessant rains in countries in the region.