With the southern spring already starting, beachfront industries and hotels may suffer from the lack of sand. The Environment News Service reports that the United Nations World Food Program is trying to deal with the heaviest rainfall in more than thirty years in northeast Africa. The flooding follows a recent drought. Crops and entire villages are submerged. Heaviest damage was in Somalia, including one of its more productive farming areas.
Thousands are homeless.
In Kenya, coastal Mombasa was devastated and roads wee washed out through much of the country. Two Antarctic seal species, a leopard fur seal and a Southern Antarctic fur seal were found ashore at New Plymouth and Hawke's Bay beaches in the last few weeks. Both were in poor conditions and were euthanized.