Floods in Nigeria displace 2 million people - Farmers fear crop destruction

[Pathfinder]

<CITE class=vcard>Nigeria farmers fear crop destruction in floods</CITE>
<CITE class=vcard></CITE>
<CITE class=vcard>By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer Jon Gambrell, Associated Press Writer </CITE>? <ABBR class=recenttimedate title=2010-09-27T06:26:20-0700>2 hrs 12 mins ago</ABBR>
<!-- end .byline -->
GUDINCHIN, Nigeria ? Farmers in northern Nigeria said Monday they feared their crops were destroyed in weekend floods that started when two swollen dams overflowed and displaced 2 million people.

In the village of Gudinchin, rice and corn stalks poked above a fast-moving river that had washed over the fields. A few houses in the village peered above the water, and people had constructed a makeshift embankment out of the remains of mud houses that had washed away.

Garba Gudinchin, 55, a farmer, said he thought a large number of crops drowned in the deluge.

"I cannot tell you the figure, it is big," he said in the local Hausa language.

Tasi'u Guda Dutse, an official with the local chapter of the Nigerian Red Cross, said his group was trying to get emergency supplies to the area. He said the aid group is most concerned about public health and sanitation after water washed through sewage and into local wells.

.../
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_floods

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Floods in Nigeria displace 2 million people - Farmers fear crop destruction

Flooding in Nigeria worsens food shortage

About 2 million people have been displaced or affected by the high waters

By JON GAMBRELL

updated <ABBR style="DISPLAY: inline" class="dtstamp updated" title=2010-09-27T17:56:05 itxtvisited="1">1 hour 53 minutes ago</ABBR>

GUDINCHIN, Nigeria ? After water nearly overtook his village in northern Nigeria, Ali Gudinchin jumped into the rushing flood with a knife, cutting away ears of corn from stalks barely rising above the muddy surface.
He ended up with only three sacks worth of food, compared to the 50-odd bags of grains and vegetables he typically grows during the arid region's brief fertile season.

"The insects were biting me as I cut," said Gudinchin, a 50-year-old man who uses his village's name as his surname, which is customary. "It was pain in addition to the pain of losing the crop."

Flood waters that rushed through his home in rural Jigawa state now cover about 34 square miles (55 square kilometers) of farmland there. As the bright sun begins to slowly dry the fields, all the farmers have are ruined stalks and dying plants ? the latest strain on food in a region where other nearby countries face serious shortages.

The floods have come at the worst possible time ? just before harvest ? when it is too late for farmers to replant their fields of millet, sorghum and cowpea, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

In northern Nigeria, unusually heavy seasonal rains sent water surging through overflowing rivers. A dam failed in the northern state of Sokoto, flooding out rural pasturelands there and killing about 40 people, according to local media reports.

In Jigawa, local officials blame the inundation on officials opening two dams at reservoirs in neighboring Kano state. Typically, the water released yearly from the dams flows into farm fields across the region known as the Sahel, a band of semi-arid land stretching across Africa south of the Sahara. The waters irrigated the crops of Jigawa, a state home to more than 4 million people.

This time, a huge wave of water from the reservoirs raced through already saturated stream and creeks beds, quickly topping over Jigawa state's simple earthen levees, said Umar Kyari, a spokesman for Gov. Sule Lamido.
About 2 million people ? about half of the state's population ? have been displaced or affected by the flooding that began two weeks ago, he said.

.../
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39384099/ns/world_news-africa/

<!-- end5188679 -->

Sunday Alamba / AP
Farmer Garba Gudinchin bundles the only millet he was able to salvage when flood waters inundated Gudinchin village, near Dutse in northern Nigeria.

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Floods in Nigeria displace 2 million people - Farmers fear crop destruction

40,000 Nigerian flood victims in need of help -MSF

30 Sep 2010

DAKAR (AlertNet) - About 40,000 people driven from their homes by flash floods in the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto still need urgent assistance, medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says.

Most of them sought refuge in bushes, schools and temporary shelters made of straw and sticks when a dam at Goronyo on the River Rima burst earlier this month after heavy rainfall.

- snip -

Heavy seasonal rainfall has caused floods across west and central Africa disrupting the lives of over 717,000 people and killing about 219, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Read more: http://alertnet.org/db/an_art/58388/2010/08/30-142916-1.htm