Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports
On October 7, 2022, a rescue worker stands in a flooded street after a boat accident in Anambra, Nigeria.
On October 7, 2022, a rescue worker stands in a flooded street after a boat accident in Anambra, Nigeria.
More than 500 people have died in Nigeria’s worst floods in a decade since June. The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs also reported that the torrents of water caused by the heavy rains had injured 1,500 people and affected 1.4 million others.
Since the start of the rainy season in June, August and September have been particularly deadly and devastating, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). This bad weather affected 31 of Nigeria’s 36 states.
More than 45,000 homes and 70,000 hectares of farmland were also completely destroyed, according to the ministry’s deputy information director, Rhoda Ishaku Iliya.
The local meteorological agency (NiMet) revealed that the heavy toll was explained in part by the overflow of several dams in Nigeria and its neighbor, Cameroon, on the Lagdo infrastructure.
It also warned that significant rain was still expected in the coming weeks and months. The rainy season in the northern states typically ends in November, and in the southern states in December.
The floods’ scale of destruction and displacement raises concerns about food shortages in Africa’s most populous country. In 2012, particularly deadly floods killed 363 people and displaced 2.1 million.
