Lagos: Nigerian authorities opened the gates at two swollen dams in the country's rain-soaked north, sending a flood into a neighbouring state that has displaced 2 million people, officials said on Friday.
Water from the Challawa and Tiga dams has swept through rural Jigawa state, bordering the nation of Niger, said Umar Kyari, a spokesman for the state governor. Kyari said the rising waters have affected about 5,000 villages in the typically arid region approaching the Sahara Desert. "They released water indiscriminately," Kyari said. "That's what why the water flows."
It wasn't immediately clear whether residents received a warning or if anyone was injured or went missing in the flooding. Officials typically open dams seasonally in the region, but it appears far more water flowed out than residents expected.
Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of 150 million in West Africa, typically has strong seasonal rains that wash through the country. However, this year has seen particularly strong rains in the north that already broke a dam and flowed over levees in another northern state.
State information commissioner Aminu Mohammed said local officials had begun putting displaced families in rural schoolhouses and other government buildings out of the reach of the floodwaters. However, Mohammed said the water had coursed across to the border with neighboring Yobe state.
"The flood has washed away all the farms and houses," Mohammed said.
Officials with the agency in charge of the dam in neighboring Kano state could not be immediately reached for comment Friday night.
Jigawa sits more than 1,400 kilometers from Lagos in Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north.
