Bodies were dragged into the river and taken by the current, complicating efforts to establish a number of dead, spoken spoken, warning that the number of victims could increase
The sudden floods recorded this week in the left of 150 dead in a city in the center of the country, authorities said on Saturday (31), while search and rescue work continues. In the city of Mokwa, more than 150 people died, 3,000 were homeless and 265 houses were “completely destroyed,” as were two bridges, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, told AFP. Torrential rains on Wednesday and Thursday dragged and submerged houses in this area and around the Niger River. The bodies were dragged into the river and taken by the current, complicating efforts to establish a number of dead, Husseini said, warning that the number of victims can increase.
The country’s president, Bola Tinubu, stated through social networks that security forces were mobilized to help rescue teams. “Relief materials and temporary shelters are being sent without delay,” he said. In Mokwa, a city more than 350 kilometers from the capital, Abuja, many buildings collapsed and the roads were flooded, signaled an AFP journalist on Friday. “Some bodies have been recovered from the rubble of crumbled houses,” Husseini said, explaining that his teams would need excavators to remove the rest. The spokesman added that many are missing, citing the case of a family of 12 people, of which only four were located.
Nigeria’s Red Cross, the Army, Police and Volunteer Groups are working on rescue efforts, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema). At least 78 people were hospitalized, the State Red Cross Chief Gideon Adamu told AFP. The Daily Trust newspaper has reported that more than 50 children from an Islamic school are missing. Nigeria’s Meteorological Agency warned of the risk of sudden floods in 15 of Nigeria’s 36 states between Wednesday and Friday. In 2024, more than 1,200 people died and 1.2 million were displaced in Nigeria in a drop in flooding in the country in decades, according to Nema.
Posted by Luisa Cardoso
*With information from AFP
