Photo credit: Premium Times Nigeria
Abuja.
Flash floods have killed 372 Nigerians in 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory within the last eight months.
The Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Habib Ahmed, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja during the inauguration and induction of new operational vehicles and specialized equipment for the agency.
He identified the mostly affected states as Adamawa, Jigawa, Taraba, Kano, Bauchi, Niger, Anambra and Ebonyi.
The NEMA boss 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,”he said.
According to him, the natural disaster had resulted in “loss of huge numbers of livestock and several farmlands have been submerged. These have been accompanied by other derivative disasters.”
The DG added tht the current trends in hazard 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.
According to him, said NEMA has keyed into proactive and predictive disaster risk management in line with best practices
He expressed optimism that hence,the effort at new acquisitions woulx close existing gaps and meet the current operational cum tactical challenges faced by actors responding to emergencies in the field.
“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.”
The Correspondent of The Reporters in Lokoja reports that increased rainfall in Lokoja and its environs in recent has sent fear into the minds of residents,most especially those living close to the bank of River Niger and Benue.
Our Correspondent recalls that the state lost huge agrcultural products, thousands of its residents displaced, houses and other personal effects worth millions of naira destroyed by floods in more than half of its 21 local government areas in 2012 major floods that visited the state.
This ugly development prompted the administration, in the state then,to construct emergency housing estate at Ibaji quarters in Lokoja for victims of the flood who lost houses and other valuelable property.
Some house owners living close to the bank of the Niger have relocated to safer places while are said to have put their houses on sale as the volume of the river increases, according to investigation by our Correspondent.
Edited by Dada Ahmed.
Daily trust/The Reporters.
