No fewer than 13 persons lost their lives while 13,226 persons were displaced during the recent flooding that ravaged Kano State.
The Executive Secretary of the Kano State Emergency Management Agency, Saleh Jili, disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Kano late Monday.
Jili also said that a total of 14,364 farmers lost their farm produce during the disaster.
“A total of 13,226 persons were displaced while 14,364 farmers lost their farm produce. So, in all, over 30,000 people were affected by the flood this year,” he said.
According to him, many victims of the flood were accommodated by their relatives and friends, as none of those affected by the flood stayed at the Internally Displaced Persons’ camp.
He stated that though the state had a well-equipped IDP camp, most of the people that were affected by the flood did not stay there.
“Unlike other states where the victims of flooding stayed at the IDPs camps or stayed in schools, here in Kano, no single person affected by the flood stayed at the camp; they were accommodated by their relatives and friends.
“These people stayed with their relatives and friends pending the time they put their houses in order before moving back.”
He noted that all the 44 local government areas of the state were affected by the flood, pointing out that it was only in the Warawa LGA that an entire community was flooded.
“In Wudil and Warawa Local Government Areas, which were the most affected, Kano SEMA had to use a canoe to convey the affected people from one area to another,” Jili said.
He, however, revealed that the victims were back to their homes within a short time, as soon as the water dried up.
He stated that before the commencement of rainfall, the state government had carried out sensitisation of the people in the communities to the need to be wary of blocking drainages and waterways.
