At least 111 people have been confirmed dead following severe flooding in Mokwa, a market town in Nigeria’s north-central Niger State. Torrential rainfall on Wednesday evening caused a dam in a nearby community to collapse, submerging the area and destroying thousands of homes.
The head of emergency operations in Minna, Husseini Isah, said rescue operations are ongoing, with many residents still unaccounted for. A spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, told journalists that more bodies were being recovered, and the death toll is likely to rise.
A local resident, Mohammed Tanko, a civil servant, said he lost 15 relatives from the house where he was raised. Another victim, fisherman Danjuma Shaba, said his home collapsed and he has been forced to sleep in a car park.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency has warned of flash flooding in 15 states, including Niger. Heavy seasonal rains, worsened by poor drainage and climate change, routinely cause deadly flooding across the country. Last year, over 1,200 people died in one of Nigeria’s worst flood disasters in decades.
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