Authorities in Nigeria say weeks of flooding have killed nearly 200 people across the country
Weeks of flooding have killed nearly 200 people in Nigeria and washed away homes and farmlands, the country’s disaster management agency said, further threatening food supplies, especially in the hard-hit northern region.
The floods blamed on poor infrastructure and badly maintained dams have killed 185 people and displaced 208,000 in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states, the National Emergency Management Agency said in an update Friday, triggering frantic efforts to evacuate hundreds of thousands to makeshift shelters.
Nigeria records flooding every year mostly as a result of failure to follow environmental guidelines and inadequate infrastructure. The worst floods the country has seen in a decade were in 2022 when more than 600 people were killed and over 1 million displaced.
However, unlike in 2022 when the floods were blamed on heavier rainfall, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency predicted delayed or normal rains in most parts of the country this year and said the current floods were more a result of human activities.
