68 life’s loss to flood in 320 LGAs in 2020 —Report

The National Emergency Management Agency on Monday put the number of lives lost to the 2020 floods in various parts of Nigeria at 68.

It also announced that 320 Local Government Areas in 35 states including the Federal Capital Territory were adversely affected by the floods experienced across the country this year.

The Director-General, NEMA, Muhammadu Muhammed, disclosed this at the 2020 Flood After Action Review Technical Meeting in Abuja.

He said, “The devastating impact of 2020 flooding killed 68 people, affected 35 states including FCT, 320 LGAs and over 129,000 people.

“It led to loss of lives, it destroyed houses and washed away farmlands across the country thereby having negative impact on food security.”

Muhammed observed that before the 2020 flooding occurred, the world was experiencing the COVlD-19 pandemic with lockdown and restriction protocols to contain the spread of the virus.

“After the release of the Seasonal Rainfall Prediction by NiMet and the Annual Flood Outlook by the Nigeria Hydrological Agency, our worst fear was confirmed with the devasting flood disaster within the pandemic,” he stated.

The NEMA boss said the technical meeting was therefore planned to review various activities carried out in respect of 2020 flood preparedness, mitigation and response.

This, he said, was a view to capturing lessons learnt and to make recommendations that could improve the ability of institutions to coordinate actions that would guide future actions on flooding in Nigeria.