At least 115 people have been killed after heavy flooding submerged the market town of Mokwa in Nigeria\u2019s northcentral Niger State, destroying thousands of homes, according to an emergency services official, in a country beset by deadly storms every year.<\/p>\n
Head of the operations office in Minna, capital of Niger State, Husseini Isah, said on Friday that many people were still in peril as rescue efforts continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have so far recovered 115 bodies and more are expected to be recovered because the flood came from far distance and washed people into the River Niger. Downstream, bodies are still being recovered,\u201d a Niger State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) spokesman, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, told the AFP news agency. \u201cSo, the toll keeps rising.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torrential rains battered Mokwa late on Wednesday and lasted for several hours, washing away dozens of homes, with many residents still missing. A dam collapse in a nearby town caused the situation to rapidly deteriorate.<\/p>\n
It is difficult to say how well-placed rescue efforts are to salvage people \u201cbecause every rainy season we continue to see things like this,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja.<\/p>\n
\u201cWarnings have been put out by authorities for people exposed or communities living along river banks to move to higher ground, especially when the rains start to peak, but every year we continue to see more and more lives and property damaged because of rainfall,\u201d said Idris.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn certain areas, proper drainage isn\u2019t there \u2026 and most of these disasters take officials of emergency management agencies in various states by surprise even though there has been consistent flooding over the past three years,\u201d said Idris. As a result, \u201ca lot of people don\u2019t believe it will be any different\u201d this time around.<\/p>\n
Mokwa is a key meeting and transit point for traders from the south and food growers in the north of the country.<\/p>\n
In the town, Mohammed Tanko, 29, a civil servant, told reporters that he lost at least 15 people from the house he grew up in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe property [is] gone. We lost everything,\u201d Tanko said.<\/p>\n
For fisherman Danjuma Shaba, 35, the floods destroyed his house, forcing him to sleep in a car park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have a house to sleep in. My house has already collapsed,\u201d Shaba told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
As Nigeria\u2019s rainy season begins, typically lasting for six months, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency has warned of possible flash floods in 15 of Nigeria\u2019s 36 states, including Niger State, between Wednesday and Friday.<\/p>\n
The most concerning thing about these floods is \u201cthis isn\u2019t even the peak of the rainy season,\u201d said Idris. \u201cIn some states, the rains have only been there for a month and yet we\u2019re seeing this.\u201d<\/p>\n