NAIROBI, 28 November (IRIN) - The number of people affected by floods in Kenya has risen to
723,000, the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) said on Tuesday. Continuing heavy rainfall was causing more rivers to breach their banks, inundating villages in various parts of the country, it added.The floods that have decimated mainly the Northeastern and Coast provinces since late October have spread to the flood-prone Western Province where River Nzoia had broken its banks, submerging
villages in Busia District. About 1,600 families in the district have been displaced, according to Linet Atieno, information officer with KRCS. A landslide caused by heavy downpour in Meru South
District in central Kenya left 100 families homeless, she added.Flooding has also hit parts of Nyanza Province in the west, Mwingi District in the south and the Tana River District in Coast
Province. An estimated 34 people have died in flood-related incidents since late October, according to KRCS figures.Flood water was receding in Garissa District, where about 100,000 of the 167,000
mostly Somalia refugees in camps in the Dadaab area of the district were affected, Peter Smerdon, spokesman for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), said.Atieno said KRCS was "in the
process" of revising a 562.7 million Kenyan shillings (about US$8 million) funding appeal, launched two weeks ago to meet the needs of the initial 300,000 people affected by the floods until the end
of February, to reflect the increased number of victims.KRCS has been providing mainly non-food relief items, including water treatment tablets and mosquito nets, to those displaced by the floods,
while the Kenyan government and the WFP have been distributing food.WFP estimates that 150,000 flood victims, mainly in remote areas of Northeastern Province, had not been reached largely because
the rains rendered roads impassable.Atieno said the flood-hit people would still need longer-term recovery assistance even after the end of the rainy season in late December. Funds would be required
to rehabilitate water and sanitation facilities damaged by the floods. Farmers whose crops were destroyed would also need help, mainly because many of them would have lost their seeds, she said.Neighbouring Ethiopia and Somalia have also been devastated by the floods. Most of the affected populations in the three countries were already vulnerable because they had lost their livelihoods,
mainly livestock, to the severe drought that hit the region earlier in the year.jn/mw
