Flooding in Nigeria Flattens a Town, Killing at Least 151

Floodwaters from torrential overnight rainfall inundated a town in Nigeria on Friday, killing at least 151 people, according to officials, who said the severity of the flood had taken them by surprise.

The deluge displaced dozens of families and flattened homes and businesses in the town, Mokwa, about 235 miles west of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. Mokwa’s central location at the intersection of three major roads has made it a thriving market town, with customers coming from several surrounding villages. The authorities and residents expect the death toll to rise as the floodwaters subside and rescue efforts continue.

After heavy overnight rains, residents in Mokwa said they woke to a shocking scene.

“We had to knock on some doors, but before people could escape, the flood had already caught up,” Umar Jamil, who lost his shop in the disaster, said in a phone interview. “We have seen many bodies floating on the water, but we couldn’t help.”

At a camp for displaced people, Kaka Dazana, 48, said she had lost all four of her children and had barely made it out of the waters alive.

“I don’t know if I myself can survive this,” she said through tears. “The eldest was 20, and the youngest was 7.”

Ibrahim Hussaini, a spokesman for the state’s emergency management department, said on Saturday that more than 3,000 people had lost their homes.

The authorities are still searching for bodies and evaluating the damage, said Habibu Wushishi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in Niger State, which includes Mokwa. They have also set up camps for the hundreds of displaced people expected to seek shelter, he said.

Each year, the rainy season, which runs from roughly April to October, brings downpours and flooding to Nigeria and other parts of West Africa. But scientists have found that climate change has contributed to the increased ferocity of the flooding in recent years. In 2022, more than 600 people were killed in Nigeria and 1.4 million displaced in what the country’s leaders described as the worst floods in a decade.

The authorities in Mokwa said they had expected flooding during this year’s rainy season, but not to this extent. Mr. Wushishi said officials had predicted that flooding would be limited to areas surrounding rivers. Mokwa, the seat of the region’s local government, is not on a river.

Still, residents like Mr. Jamil, the shopkeeper, were angered by what they said was the state’s slow response to flood warnings.

“There have been signs for a long time that a flood might occur here,” Mr. Jamil, 32, said. “You can only imagine the magnitude of the pain inflicted on our people by this flood.”

Jonathan Wolfe contributed reporting.