Three people, including two children, died in Nairobi’s Mathare informal settlement after being run over by bulldozers as the Kenya government embarked on demolition structures built on riparian land and other flood-prone areas of the capital city.

The deaths sparked off protests on the back of the deaths – one before President William Ruto’s visit and two after it – according to civil society groups.

Kenya’s government has begun bulldozing homes built in flood-prone areas and promising evicted families the equivalent of $75 to relocate after a deadline passed to evacuate amid deadly rains.

In the capital, Nairobi, a bulldozer ripped through iron-sheeted walls as occupants of the shanties watched in despair. Security forces with guns and batons stood guard and fired tear gas at some residents. The government last week told thousands of people living near rivers, dams and other flood-prone areas to vacate as heavy rains that have left 238 people dead in the past three weeks continue to pound.

Most of those whose houses are demolished say they do not know where to go, even though the government claims they were notified about options. Human Rights Watch has accused the government of an inadequate response.

“Now what are we going to do? We love our president and that is why we supported him. He should come to our aid,” Jekenke Jegenke lamented.

President William Ruto, who visited the vast Mathare informal settlement along the Nairobi River on Monday, said those whose houses had been demolished would be given Ksh10,000 ($75) compensation to help them resettle elsewhere.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga last week warned the government against demolishing more houses without a resettlement plan in place.

The number of those affected by the flooding in Kenya has risen to 235,000, with most of them living in camps.

Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki on Tuesday reiterated an evacuation order to 200 families living in the Kijabe area – an hours’s drive from Nairobi – where about 60 people were killed and houses were swept away when water broke through a blocked railway tunnel last week.

That disaster prompted the government’s evacuation order. It is not clear how many homes across Kenya have been demolished since then.

Meanwhile, Kenya’s Cabinet has said that water levels in the country’s two major hydroelectric dams – Masinga and Kiambere – have risen to “historic levels,” with people living downstream on the Tana River told to leave.

• A Tell / AP report