At least a hundred tourists, most of them foreigners, as well as workers and drivers, have been stranded since yesterday in the Kenyan Maasai Mara reserve, following flooding after heavy rains in recent days.
As reported by the main national media, the Talek river broke its banks yesterday night and flooded in an area where at least 14 lodges and tented camps are concentrated, in a strategic position to admire the animals and especially the spectacle of the great migration, which usually begins in a few weeks. Tourists and staff at the camps had to seek shelter in the trees or on the roofs of the structures, according to what some tour guides told the press. Yesterday, weather permitting, Narok County helicopters set off in search of the stranded tourists, with the intention of getting them to safety.

So far, there are no reports of missing persons or casualties, but still in the evening there was no actual news that all the tourists had been rescued. 'We have deployed two helicopters on standby to evacuate people from the affected areas when we receive distress calls,' the county authority said in a statement. However, collaboration between the national government, the Red Cross, the Mara Elephant Project and community members resulted in 36 people being rescued by air and another 25 through a water rescue team. Some of them were transferred to hotels further away from the river, while waiting for other rescue vehicles, because most of the roads are impassable.
The Minister of Tourism, Alfred Mutua, has called on other hotels and camps adjacent to rivers within national parks and reserves to prepare for potential evacuation in the event of river overflow. The damage amounts to tens of millions of shillings, with some camps likely to have to start, as soon as the weather permits, a race against time so as not to have to cancel their many bookings for the period of the great migration, starting at the end of May.

The government, through the Kenya Tourism Federation (KTF), two days ago had issued a series of travel advisories for residents, individuals and tourists planning or intending to visit the national parks and reserves during the rainy season, advising motorists to avoid crossing or moving near or into moving water, large puddles or the like, or into open fields during storm showers, and not to shelter under trees and near windows with iron grills to minimise exposure to lightning.
But at the same time they had given the go-ahead to the Maasai Mara, along the few safe roads.
In the Amboseli National Park, on the other hand, despite the heavy rains, no significant damage or subsidence has been reported by the authorities in the area and the access roads to the park are passable.
With regard to the Isiolo area and the Samburu reserve, the government stated that the Shaba area is under observation in case the Ewaso Nyiro River overflows.
In light of the flooding of the river near Naivasha that has claimed 72 lives so far, the Suswa section on the Mai Mahiu-Narok road is still passable, thus allowing travel to the Mara.
As far as the coastal regions and the southern parks (Tsavo and Shimba Hills) are concerned, there are no signs of alarm, still considering the warning threshold for river levels, in particular the Galana and Tana.