Flood: Little girl, four others die in Miga building collapse

A baby girl aged between three to four years and four others lost their lives in buildings which collapsed during a flood in Miga Local Government Area, Jigawa State.

This was disclosed by the Miga local government council chairman, Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Agufa while speaking to newsmen in Miga town the headquarters of Miga Local Government Area.

He said, “This evening, a building collapsed and trapped a little girl who was sleeping along with her grandmother. As a result, the little girl lost her life and the grandmother sustained a fracture in her leg.”

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Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Agufa explained that “the water flooded the headquarters of Miga local government and many other towns and villages in seven political wards of the area.

“Apart from here, some buildings also collapsed and trapped some people.”

According to him, deaths were recorded in Insharuwa, Sansani and Tsakuwawa villages making a total of five people who died so far in the area.

The council chairman maintained that the residents of the area have lost hundreds of farmlands and crops together with several houses, to the flood.

Alhaji Muhammed said residents have defied sleep in trying to salvage the remaining part of the town that is also being under threat of the flooding.

The chairman said all abled-bodied men in the town were mobilised to be on guard every night in the hinterland in trying to protect the town from the rampaging water seeping through embankments provided by the State Emergency Management Authority (SEMA) and other well meaning individuals.

He stated that the floodwater was as a result of blockages in the Hadejia River by typha grass after days of continued rainfalls that refused to drain.

Findings by Tribune Online revealed that other structures such as the local government secretariat, the police divisional office, the 20-room youth corpers lodge together with the council hospital were all submerged by the flood.

The local government officials including the council chairman now operate from the official residence of the chairman, while the police have resorted to using the trees as their temporary shelter until the flood subsides.

Some of the residents who spoke to Tribune Online said that they continued to suffer under the flood even though they were provided with garri, groundnut cake and sugar with which to sustain them for the time being.

The executive secretary of SEMA, Alhaji Yusuf Sani Babura, who Tribune Online met at the site disclosed that the authorities were already collating a comprehensive data on all the affected people across the state.

He said, however, the state has offered the council with 70 bags of garri,​ 50 bags of groundnut cake, 30 bags of sugar and two locally made canoes.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE