According to official reports, about 47 people were killed and 85 others injured in landslides caused by flooding in northern Tanzania, with warnings the toll would rise.

Dodoma district commissioner Janeth Mayanja said that heavy rains hit the town of Katesh, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of the capital on Saturday.

"Up to this evening, the death toll reached 47 and 85 injured," Queen Sendiga, regional commissioner in the Manyara area of northern Tanzania, told local media.

Tanzania's President Samia Suluhu Hassan, in Dubai for the COP28 climate conference, sent her condolences and said she had ordered the deployment of "more government efforts to rescue people".

Following an unparalleled drought, El Nino-related flooding and torrential rain have been plaguing East Africa for several weeks.

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In addition to displacing over a million people, the downpours in Somalia have claimed hundreds of lives.

El Nino is a naturally occurring weather pattern from the Pacific Ocean that causes global warming. It causes copious rainfall in some places and drought in others.

Scientists predict that the worst of the current El Nino will be felt around the end of 2023 and into the next year.

In five nations in the region, severe flooding brought on by intense El Nino rains between October 1997 and January 1998 claimed almost 6,000 lives.