The 2018 East Africa Floods were a natural disaster in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Djibouti, and Burundi affecting millions of people. They began when excessive rains began falling in March 2018 following a year of severe drought, leading to massive flooding, landslides, and the failure and overflow of several dams. Record rainfall was recorded in several areas, surpassing various records set during the 1950s and during the 1997–98 El Niño event. Nearly 500 people have lost their lives while hundreds of thousands of others have been displaced.