Man loses 6 kids, 2 wives to flood
Eleven people have died and over 50 houses destroyed in a flood occasioned by a heavy rain in Suleja and Tafa local government areas of Niger State.
Nuhu Shuaibu, the Ward head of Chechenia Suleja area where the incident was worse, said eight of the victims were members of the same family.
He said one Sa’adu Abubakar, also known as Asha, a tea vendor, lost his two wives (Suwaiba and Hajara) and six children (Ikilima, Musa, Yusuf, Zainab, Asmau and Nana Khadija).
Mallam Sa’adu told Daily Trust that the incident occurred while they were sleeping only to be woken up by the sound of one of the part of the house that collapsed.
He said by the time they got to know nearly all parts of the house had already been submerged, adding that they had to call for assistance from neighbours who could not offer any even as members of his family were already taken away.
Malam Sa’adu said initially he had two of the children in his hands while the first wife had others but they were eventually overpowered by the wave of the water. “The next thing I could remember was that I was lucky to have been paged by a three which helped me to escape death,” he said.
Our correspondents learnt that another woman from a different family in the area was also confirmed to have died from the incident. At Kuspa area of the same town, another person died while one other died at Hayin-Nasarawa in Tafa LGA.
The Niger State Emergency Management Agency officials have so far recovered eight bodies.
The 11-hour downpour started Saturday night and lasted to Sunday morning. An undisclosed number of livestock were also killed and hundreds of hectares of farms were submerged in the two local government areas.
NSEMA Director General Alhaji Ibrahim Ahmed Inga who confirmed the incident, said the agency’s search and rescue operation and volunteers were at the sites of the disaster.
He said the casualties could be more as many people were said by the villagers to be still missing.
“As I am talking to you now the search and rescue operation is going on. Initially we thought it was eight people who lost their lives in Suleja but now it has increased to 10 and we have another one from Tafa,” he said.
He said medical personnel had been drafted to the areas to provide emergency support for those in urgent need, while relief materials were being moved to cushion the effect of the disaster.