/ 10 September 2003

Flooding in Nigeria kills eight

Eight people have been killed and 2 215 displaced in flooding in Kano State in northern Nigeria, state officials said on Wednesday.

In nearby Kaduna state, weekend flooding displaced more than 5 000 people, but no one was killed, officials said.

The disaster in Kano, blamed on two days of rain at the weekend, affected 13 local government districts in the state, state relief official Lawal Shehu said.

He said eight bodies have been recovered following the floods and that scores of families had been left homeless.

Property valued at millions of dollars was damaged, he said.

Shehu said the government has distributed relief materials to victims of the flooding.

No one died in the Kaduna floods, officials there said.

Red Cross coordinators said that 257 families — about 1 300 people — have been evacuated and resettled in three camps in Kaduna, which lies 186km north of Nigeria’s capital Abuja, in a normally dry region which is swept once a year by heavy rains. — Sapa-AFP