Hundreds killed in Nigeria floods, more than 1.4 million displaced
Fires, flooding and mudslides have killed over 200 people, forced more than a million to evacuate homes and inundated farmland, in the worst crisis to hit central Nigeria over the past two decades.
The floods sent people fleeing to the coast, according to a woman from the town of Wau, around 180 km (110 miles) from the capital, Abuja.
“I went to my daughter’s hometown and we were there for a few hours, but by the time I got there, all the water had been washed away,” she said.
“For us, the situation here is hopeless. We will probably have to wait for the waters to recede.”
The man who started the rescue operation called the situation “a disaster”.
“We are in a state of emergency and on standby, our people are out there doing what they can in response. We are coordinating this with the national Disaster Management Agency,” he said.
The death toll from the floods was initially put at 112 but has since risen to more than 200, with many more people still missing.
The floods killed almost 200 people, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, and is responsible for the deaths of three people and left over 1.3 million displaced, according to OCHA. It is also responsible for the deaths of at least 33 people, and at least 600,000 people are without power.
Some victims had to be rescued after their homes were washed away by raging flood waters.
“We were all packed into my friend’s house and his father’s house and we were left standing there. His house is gone but he is still alive,” one survivor told OCHA.
The worst flooding since 1995
“My village and many more have been destroyed. My house was washed away. I lost everything,” said a man who was trying to cross the nearby river, and whose two-room house had become too dangerous to cross.
The flooding began in the early hours of Wednesday, and has since killed at least 113 people and displaced 2.4 million, according to OCHA.
But while the scale of the devastation is the worst since floods swept the central region in 1995, that disaster was triggered by a severe drought that affected more than 1.5 million people.
The death toll from the flooding