Flood: Death toll increases to 612, says FG

The Federal Government on Wednesday said the number of death recorded as a result of the devastating flood ravaging the country has risen to 612.

The FG also said it requires over N80 billion to repair the infrastructures in the affected areas.

This is as the government has said there is no technology to dictate natural disaster and even blamed the people in the areas for not heeding to the early warnings of the impending disaster since February.

Already, the government said that relief materials have been delivered to 22 states, while the Nigerian Air Force would help to airlift the relief materials to Rivers and Bayelsa states where means of transportation to deliver the materials have been a problem.

Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq said 3,219,780 persons were affected and 1,427,370 persons displaced.

She said the impact analysis summary of the flood disaster as of October 21 showed that 2,776 persons were injured, 181,600 houses partially damaged, 123,807 houses completely damaged as well as 392,399 farmlands totally damaged, adding that all these sadly took place, “despite early warnings and actions coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.”

The Minister further said, “The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development and agencies under the supervision as well as relevant MDA’s including Ministry of Water Resources, Health, Agriculture and local and humanitarian actors in the country are ramping up activities as stipulated in the recent FEC approved National Food Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan, NFEPRP, with a view of providing emergency protection and assistance as well as building their resilience to cope and recover from the situation.

“The FMHADMSD and NEMA are now focused on two strategies on the response phase: search and rescue operations and the provision of lifesaving emergency relief materials for victims.”

She said the search and rescue efforts covered 25 states, 199 local government areas and 1020 communities.

According to her, “Supply of specialised equipment including motorized and inflatable boats to Bayelsa and Kogi states for the purposes of search, rescue, recoceries and evacuation.”

Also speaking, the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, said it will take 30 years of consistent investment to control flood menace.

The Minister also said that nobody can stop the phenomenon in the country and that government can only minimise the impact of the occurrence.

He said, “There is no technology on earth, none that can tell you the extent of the floods, none whatsoever. You work on the basis of data that you have before.

“Now that the rains have come that is what hydrology is all about, this is a record and now we’re resetting the clock. So that our future plans will now consider that this is the historical catastrophic level that we will not account for, that is what engineering does. This has never happened before.”

He also said despite the early warning system in place, a lot of capital intensive initiatives remain to be done in future to avert the consequences of flood disasters.