At least 115 people have been killed after heavy flooding submerged the market town of Mokwa in Nigeria’s northcentral Niger State, destroying thousands of homes, according to an emergency services official, in a country beset by deadly storms every year.
Head of the operations office in Minna, capital of Niger State, Husseini Isah, said on Friday that many people were still in peril as rescue efforts continue.
Downstream, bodies are still being recovered,” a Niger State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) spokesman, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, told the AFP news agency.
The heavy rainfall causes problems for Nigeria every year as it destroys infrastructure and is further exacerbated by inadequate drainage.
In September 2024, torrential rains and a dam collapse in the northeastern Maiduguri city caused severe flooding, killing at least 30 people and displacing millions.
According to an emergency services official, the market town of Mokwa in northcentral Niger State, Nigeria, was submerged by heavy flooding, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 115 people. The country is plagued by deadly storms every year.
While rescue efforts continue, many people remain in danger, according to Husseini Isah, head of the operations office in Minna, the capital of Niger State, who spoke on Friday.
Because the flood came from a great distance and carried people into the River Niger, we have recovered 115 bodies so far, and more are anticipated. According to Ibrahim Audu Husseini, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), bodies are still being recovered downstream, the AFP news agency reported. Thus, the death toll continues to increase. “”.
Mokwa was hit by torrential rains late on Wednesday that continued for several hours, destroying dozens of homes and leaving many residents unaccounted for. The situation quickly deteriorated after a dam collapsed in a nearby town.
Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja, stated that it is hard to determine how effective rescue operations are at saving lives “because every rainy season we continue to see things like this.”.
“Authorities have issued warnings for people exposed or communities along river banks to relocate to higher ground, particularly when the rains start to peak, but we continue to see an increasing number of deaths and property damage due to rainfall every year,” Idris said.
“Even though there has been constant flooding over the past three years, adequate drainage is lacking in some areas … and most of these disasters take officials of emergency management agencies in various states by surprise,” Idris said. Consequently, “many people don’t think it will be any different” this time.
Food producers in the country’s north and traders from the south use Mokwa as a major meeting and transit location.
A 29-year-old civil servant named Mohammed Tanko told reporters in the town that he lost at least 15 members of his family from the home where he was raised.
“The property is no longer there. Tanko remarked, “We lost everything.”.
After his house was destroyed by floods, 35-year-old fisherman Danjuma Shaba was forced to sleep in a parking lot.
“I have no place to sleep in my house. I’ve already had my house fall apart,” Shaba told the AFP news agency.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency has issued a warning about the possibility of flash floods in 15 of Nigeria’s 36 states, including Niger State, between Wednesday and Friday as the country’s rainy season, which usually lasts six months, begins.
According to Idris, “this isn’t even the peak of the rainy season,” which is the most worrisome aspect of these floods. “We’re seeing this even though the rains have only been in some states for a month. “”.
However, due to the increasing frequency of extreme weather patterns, scientists have cautioned that the effects of climate change are already being felt.
Every year, Nigeria faces challenges as a result of the heavy rainfall, which damages infrastructure and is made worse by poor drainage.
At least 30 people were killed and millions more were displaced in September 2024 when severe flooding occurred in the northeastern city of Maiduguri due to heavy rains and a dam collapse.
At least 31 of the 36 states experienced one of the worst floods in decades last year, with over 1,200 people killed and 1.2 million displaced, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.
