More than 500 people have lost their lives in Nigeria’s worst floods in a decade. The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs also reported that the torrents of water generated by the heavy rains had left 1,500 injured and 1.4 million affected.
According to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), August and September have been particularly deadly and devastating since the start of the rainy season in June. This bad weather affected 31 of the 36 Nigerian states.
More than 45,000 homes and 70,000 hectares of farmland were also completely destroyed, the ministry’s deputy information director Rhoda Ishaku Iliya said in a statement.
The local meteorological agency (NiMet) revealed that this heavy toll was partly explained by the overflow of several dams inside Nigeria and in its neighbour, Cameroon on the infrastructure of Lagdo.
It also warned that significant rainfall was still expected in the weeks and months to come. The rainy season usually ends in November in the northern states and December in the south.
The scale of destruction and displacement caused by the floods raises fears of food shortages in Africa’s most populous country.ย In 2012, particularly deadly floods left 363 dead and 2.1 million displaced.
This article was originally published on OsunDaily News
