Flooding in central Nigeria kills over 115
Rescue teams continued searching for missing residents after heavy rains from late Wednesday into early Thursday swept away and flooded dozens of homes in and around Mokwa, a town situated along the banks of the Niger River in Niger State.
"We 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," Ibrahim Audu Husseini, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, told AFP.
"Downstream, bodies are still being recovered. So, the toll keeps rising," he added.
He said many were still missing, citing a family of 12 where only four members have been accounted for.
"Some bodies were recovered from the debris of collapsed homes," he said, adding that his teams would need excavators to retrieve corpses from under the rubble.
At least 78 people have been hospitalised with injuries, the Red Cross chief for the state, Gideon Adamu, told AFP.
According to the Daily Trust newspaper, thousands of people have been displaced and more than 50 children in an Islamic school were reported missing.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) described it as an "unprecedented flood".
The police and military have been roped in to help with the disaster response.
An AFP journalist in Mokwa, more than 300 kilometres (186 miles) east of the capital Abuja, saw emergency services conducting search and rescue operations with residents going through the rubble of flattened buildings as flood waters flowed alongside.
Similar news
