Roads closed as flooding hits Dar-es-Salaam

Heavy showers have been falling across southern Tanzania, right at the end of the rainy season.

The rain has flooded areas of the city and forced the closure of some roads.

Dar-es-Salaam has seen 144mm of rain in the last two days, fast approaching the average of 198mm that is expected in the entire month of May.

Zanzibar has seen even more, with the airport reporting 328mm of rain in the last three days. People have posted pictures of themselves on social media wading through knee-deep floodwater.

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#flashflood #rainyseason #zanzibar #stonetown Wading through torrential rain to get from the restaurant 😬

A post shared by Alison Surtees (@alousur) on May 6, 2019 at 11:14am PDT

The Tanzania Meteorological Agency has issued more warnings of thunderstorms for Tuesday and Wednesday, highlighting the risk of further flooding.

The wet season usually runs from November to May, so these downpours are fairly late in the season.

However, despite the disruption the storms may bring, in the long-term the rain will be very useful as the wet season was lacking in April, bringing less the 70 percent of the monthly average.