Nigeria hit by devastating floods

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Mokwa, a city in central Nigeria, was among the hardest hit. Torrential rains lashed the city from Wednesday to Thursday, causing flash floods that caught many residents by surprise.

Search teams are currently deployed to search for survivors and missing people. A spokesman for the Nigerian State Disaster Management Agency said that search efforts are underway as far as 10 kilometers from the city, where the situation is also critical.

Floods along the Niger River have destroyed at least 265 homes and displaced over 3,000 people. President Bola Tinubu expressed his condolences and said search and rescue operations were underway with the support of Nigerian security forces.

Many residents believe the flooding may have been caused by a dam failure on the river, but officials have not yet confirmed this. The amount of water that hit the town of Mokwa and surrounding villages was so great that no one had time to prepare for evacuation.

Floods are a regular threat in Nigeria during the six-month rainy season, but experts agree that the frequency and severity of these disasters are increasing due to climate change, unregulated construction and poor drainage infrastructure.

Floods threaten Nigeria from April to October, but even though the risks are clearly defined, there is little political will to make a change. Last year, more than 1,200 people died in Nigeria as a result of similar disasters and up to two million were forced to flee their homes.

Source:Aljazeera