When phenomenon last hit Tanzania
Tanzania is reflecting on the devastating 1997/98 El Niño event as a benchmark for disaster preparedness. Meteorologists and researchers are using historical data from that period to improve current strategies for managing extreme weather impacts.
Why it matters
Understanding historical climate disasters is essential for developing effective infrastructure and emergency response systems in regions vulnerable to climate change.
DAR ES SALAAM: THE rain did not stop. It fell through the day, drummed through the night and turned ordinary roads into rivers that swallowed bridges, cut railway lines and cut off communities from food and essential services.
In Musoma, Standard Six pupil Fredrick Pundo watched classmates disappear from school as flooded paths became too dangerous to cross.
In Shinyanga, farmer Dotto Tumbo saw her family's rice harvest triple before cassava rotted in soaked fields because there was nowhere dry enough to save it.
Nearly three decades later, those memories still define what many Tanzanians mean when they talk about El Niño.
The 1997/98 episode remains the benchmark disaster against which meteorologists, climate researchers and emergency planners measure subsequent extreme rainfall events.
As the country prepares for another potentially powerful El Niño season, that extraordinary period offers more than historical memory.
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