Nairobi dam was built in 1953, an earthen embankment wall, designed to hold back the Motoine River and provide clean drinking water for a colonial-era city. Over the decades, the water it was built to contain was replaced by something else: homes, farms, rental units, and the daily lives of thousands of Nairobi residents with nowhere else to go.
Now, after weeks of the heaviest rains this city has seen in years, experts warn that the dam’s embankment is at risk of breaching. The Nairobi Rivers Commission has been on the ground measuring the earth wall. And the governor of Nairobi says residents in its path must move.
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