LAGOS, Nigeria – Flash flooding across Nigeria’s southwest killed at least 102 people in the last week, the country’s Red Cross said Wednesday.
Some 1,500 people remain displaced by the torrential downpours, officials said.
The major flood hit hardest in Oyo state’s capital of Ibadan. Heavy rains there on Friday made a local dam overflow, sending water crashing through the informal settlements surrounding the city. The water also damaged three bridges in the area, trapping people in their neighborhoods, said Tunde Adebiyi, an official with Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.
Many homes were poorly constructed, meaning they simply washed away when the water rushed through, said Umar Mairiga, an official with the Nigerian Red Cross.
“I think in the process a lot of them were washed away by the rainwater and others were trapped in collapsed buildings,” Mairiga said Wednesday.
Mairiga said it took time to get a proper casualty figure as water levels in
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