Flash floods tore through parts of Niger State, killing over 100 people, an official from the emergency services confirmed on Friday. Authorities expect the death toll to rise.
Rescue teams continued searching for missing residents after torrential rainfall on Wednesday night swept away and submerged dozens of homes around Mokwa, a town in Niger State.
“We have recovered 115 bodies so far, and we expect to find more, as the floodwaters travelled a long distance and carried people into the River Niger,” said Ibrahim Audu Husseini, spokesperson for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, speaking to AFP.
He added, “Bodies are still being recovered downstream, so the toll keeps increasing.”
Many remain missing. Husseini cited one family of 12, where only four members have been found.
“We recovered some bodies from the debris of collapsed homes,” he noted. “We’ll need excavators to retrieve more from beneath the rubble.”
Earlier on Friday, Hussaini Isah, an official coordinating the rescue operation, reported a provisional death toll of 88.
An AFP journalist observed emergency crews searching for survivors while residents combed through the ruins of their homes, as floodwaters still ran nearby.
‘We lost everything’
Children displaced by the flood played in the water, raising fears of water-borne disease. At least two bodies lay on the ground, covered with cloth and banana leaves.
One tearful woman, wearing a maroon headscarf, sat silently with tears rolling down her cheeks.
Mohammed Tanko, a 29-year-old civil servant, pointed to his childhood home and told reporters, “We lost at least 15 people from this house. The property’s gone. We lost everything.”
Danjuma Shaba, a 35-year-old fisherman, said he had spent the night in a car park. “I have no place to sleep. My house has collapsed,” he explained.
Nigeria’s rainy season, which lasts about six months, has only just begun. Flooding, often triggered by heavy rain and inadequate infrastructure, devastates communities every year, killing hundreds across the country.
Experts have warned that climate change is already contributing to more severe weather events.
In Nigeria, poor drainage systems, construction on waterways, and indiscriminate dumping of waste worsen the effects of flooding.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency had issued a warning about possible flash floods in 15 of the country’s 36 states—including Niger—between Wednesday and Friday.
In 2024, floods killed over 1,200 people and displaced 1.2 million across at least 31 states, marking one of Nigeria’s worst flood disasters in decades, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.