Flooding Kills 11, Displaces Hundreds in Yobe, Jigawa

Make-shift homes of cattle dealers are submerged in floods in 2011

Flooding in two areas of northern Nigeria has killed at least 11 people and displaced hundreds, officials and residents said Friday, the latest casualties in the country’s rainy season.Heavy rains that started late Thursday and continued into Friday killed nine people in the town of Gashua in northeastern Yobe state, Nasiru Yusuf, a paramedic at the main hospital in the town.
Residents estimated around 1,000 homes, mostly mud houses, had been destroyed.
“Nine bodies were brought to the hospital by rescue teams who recovered the bodies from debris of homes destroyed in the flood,” Yusuf said.
Two other people were killed on Thursday in the Kiyawa district of northern Jigawa state when torrential rains swamped 10 villages and inundated swathes of crops, a local official said.
“We lost two people, one in Adele and another in Dangoli village, following heavy rains which resulted in flooding that swept away 10 villages and destroyed around 1,500 hectares of crops,” said Basiru Maje, a local council official.
Dozens have been killed in flash floods in northern and central Nigeria in recent weeks, including more than 60 people left dead in two separate floods in Plateau state.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has warned that 12 of the 36 states of the country would experience flooding this rainy season, which typically runs from April to September.