Heavy rain caused flooding in Kano, Nigeria, displacing over 500 people and killing one person after he fell in Katsaiki River at Darmanawa in Kumbotso Local Government Area of the State.
Four people are still missing after they had been swept away by raging flood waters. The flooding is also believed to have damaged the city cemetery, unearthing 20 corpses. Authorities claim at least 100 homes have been destroyed in the area, although Nigeria’s State Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation Agency said 408 homes were destroyed in Kano city and another 26 outside the metropolis. Kato is the largest city in northern Nigeria where torrential rainfall is fairly common.
The heavy rain began to fall on Friday, 9th August. However the situation was made much worse by the poor or blocked drainage in the city. Some reports state that the drains and culverts had been filled with garbage, leaving the flood waters with nowhere else to go other than into the city’s roads.
The floods in Kano will be of grave concern to many Nigerians after the country suffered so badly with flooding in 2012. According to Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), 363 people died in flooding in Nigeria last year. 7 million people were affected and 2.3 million displaced after 597,476 houses were submerged by water. The country is still working to recover from the 2012 floods, which were considered to be the worst in 40 years.
NEMA representatives were attending a conference in Asaba, Delta state to discuss and promote a flood awareness campaign aiming to introduce early warning and early action for flood disasters.
Earlier this year the Nigerian Metrological Agency (NIMET) had warned that devastating floods were expected in Nigeria during 2013, particularly in Komadug, Yobe Basin and the Niger and Benue river basins.
European Union Civil Protection Mechanism Visit
After Nigeria had requested assistance through the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism a team of flood experts from Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic arrived in Nigeria on 13th August in order to give advice on measures to prepare for and mitigate the impact of floods in the country. The team of flood experts also includes a representative of the European Commission´s Joint Research Centre (JRC), an expert from the Commission’s Regional Humanitarian Office in Dakar, Senegal and a liaison officer from the Emergency Response Centre of the commission.
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Sources: Fox News; All Africa; PM News Nigeria; Nigeria Tribune
