Death toll now 372 as flooding spreads to 33 states, FCT

Flash floods have killed 372 Nigerians in 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory within the last eight months.

Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Habib Ahmed, said this yesterday in Abuja during the commissioning and induction of new operational vehicles and specialized equipment for NEMA.

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He said the states mostly affected were Adamawa, Jigawa, Taraba, Kano, Bauchi, Niger, Anambra and Ebonyi.

The Presidency had last Tuesday said since January, destructive floods had killed 115 persons, displaced 73,379 and injured 277 others in 22 states and the FCT.

But the NEMA DG yesterday said: “In the last eight months, floods in Nigeria; mostly flash floods, have inundated 33 out of 36 states and FCT, affected over 508,000 persons, leading to about 372 deaths, 277 injured persons, destruction of about 37,633 houses, loss of huge numbers of livestock and several farmlands have been submerged. These have been accompanied by other derivative disasters,” he said.

He said the current trends in hazards identification, risk mapping and actual disasters had shown increasing instances of structural collapses, fuel tanker explosions, other road crashes and fire outbreaks which were either isolated disasters or derivative disasters in the raining seasons mostly characterized by floods.

He said NEMA had keyed into proactive and predictive disaster risk management in line with best practices “hence the effort at new acquisitions will close existing gaps and meet the current operational cum tactical challenges faced by actors responding to emergencies in the field.”

He stated: “The vehicles and equipment will be distributed to NEMA offices spread across Nigeria and emergency response team at this headquarters. The equipment include: 3 mobile intensive care unit ambulances, 3 incident response vehicles, 2 motorized boats, 2 inflatable boats, 9 flood lights, 15 probe cameras, 3 life locators, 15 breaching systems, 9 chain saws, 6 concrete cutters, 9 full body harness and 9 hose pump unit.”