Again Six Die, Five Missing In Niger State Waters

The Niger State Management Agency (NSEMA) has confirmed that no fewer than six people have allegedly died, while five others are still missing in a boat accident at Gbara area of Mokwa LGA (River Kaduna) in Lavun Local Government Area of Niger State.

Naija News gathered that the accident happened yesterday evening when the boat left for Gbara village from Lanchikagi village of Lavun LG with 48 passengers on board. In a statement signed by the NSEMA Director General, Ibrahim Inga, six out of the 48 passengers on board allegedly died, while five others still missing. Inga noted that the accident happened due to a heavy downpour of rain that came with a wild windstorm. According to him, 37 people survived the accident, while six dead bodies were recovered. He said the information they gathered was that the passengers were said to have been returning Danchitagi village market in Lavun local government. However, he said the agency had embarked on search and rescue operations to find the remaining five missing people. Meanwhile, Naija News had earlier reported that the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs disclosed that more than 500 people have died from Nigeria’s floods in a decade, adding that another 1,500 people have been reported injured during this period while a total of 1.4 million people have been generally affected. According to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), August and September have been particularly deadly and devastating since the start of the rainy season in June. This bad weather affected 31 of the 36 Nigerian states. More than 45,000 homes and 70,000 hectares of farmland were also completely destroyed, the agency’s deputy information director Rhoda Ishaku Iliya said in a statement. The local meteorological agency (NiMet) revealed that this heavy toll was partly explained by the overflow of several dams inside Nigeria and in its neighbour, Cameroon on the infrastructure of Lagdo. The agency cautioned that heavy rain downpours are still expected for weeks and months because the rainy season usually ends in November in the northern states and December in the south.

This article was originally published on Naija News