Native officers warn the dying toll might rise after heavy rainfall flooded a market city in Niger State.
At the very least 111 individuals have been killed after heavy flooding submerged the market city of Mokwa in Nigeria’s north-central Niger State, in line with a neighborhood official, in a rustic beset by lethal storms yearly.
Head of the operations workplace in Minna, capital of Niger State, Husseini Isah, mentioned on Friday that many individuals have been nonetheless in peril as rescue efforts proceed.
A Niger State Emergency Administration Company (SEMA) spokesman, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, instructed the AP information company, “extra our bodies have simply been introduced and are but to be counted, however we have now at the least 111 confirmed (lifeless) already.”
Torrential rains battered Mokwa late on Wednesday and lasted for a number of hours, washing away dozens of houses, with many residents nonetheless lacking. A dam collapse in a close-by city brought about the scenario to quickly deteriorate.
Mokwa is a key assembly and transit level for merchants from the south and meals growers within the north of the nation.
Within the city, Mohammed Tanko, 29, a civil servant, instructed reporters that he misplaced at the least 15 individuals from the home he grew up in.
“The property [is] gone. We misplaced the whole lot,” Tanko mentioned.
For fisherman Danjuma Shaba, 35, the floods destroyed his home, forcing him to sleep in a carpark.
“I don’t have a home to sleep in. My home has already collapsed,” Shaba instructed AFP.
As Nigeria’s wet season begins, sometimes lasting for six months, the Nigerian Meteorological Company has warned of attainable flash floods in 15 of Nigeria’s 36 states, together with Niger State, between Wednesday and Friday.
Nonetheless, scientists have warned that the consequences of local weather change are already being felt, as excessive climate patterns have gotten extra frequent.
The heavy rainfall causes issues for Nigeria yearly because it destroys infrastructure and is additional exacerbated by insufficient drainage.
In September 2024, torrential rains and a dam collapse within the northeastern Maiduguri metropolis brought about extreme flooding, killing at the least 30 individuals and displacing thousands and thousands.
Final yr, greater than 1,200 individuals have been killed and 1.2 million displaced in at the least 31 out of 36 states, in one of many nation’s worst floods in a long time, in line with the Nationwide Emergency Administration Company.
