The collapse of a dam in north-eastern Nigeria has caused severe flooding, destroyed thousands of homes and worsened a dire humanitarian crisis.

 The flooding in Borno state has affected a million people, the state governor said on Wednesday, straining resources as authorities scramble to rescue residents and place them in temporary shelters. A video of an ostrich wading through a flooded road in the capital, Maiduguri, has been widely shared on social media. 

Heavy rains had caused the dam to overflow, decimating a state-owned zoo and washing crocodiles and snakes into flooded communities. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Maiduguri, said a ‘’stream of people” are currently making their way out of areas covered by the floodwaters. He said civilians have been searching in the water with limited diving equipment to save as many people as possible. 

“We’ve seen dead bodies arriving,” he said, adding that a successful rescue operation saw baby twins saved from the floodwaters and moved to safety. Local officials said it was the worst flooding in the state in two decades, but authorities have yet to announce
deaths. 

Idris reported that Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima recently visited people displaced by the floods and promised to provide them food, shelter and medicine. A day later, Idris said very few supplies had reached those people. Borno State governor Babagana Zulum visited Bakassi camp, and told reporters authorities were assessing the damage and a quarter of the state capital, Maiduguri, had been flooded. 

‘’You can see how water completely flooded the area, sewers were completely flooded, that means waterborne diseases would be transmitted,” Zulum told reporters while meeting affected residents. The dam collapse is compounding a humanitarian crisis in Borno over the past decade due to a rebellion started by the Boko Haram armed group. The rebellion, which has spilled across borders around Lake Chad, has killed more than 35,000 people, displaced 2.6 million others in the country’s north-eastern region.

 Bakassi camp used to house tens of thousands of people who were displaced by the Boko Haram rebellion. The camp had been closed last year. The National Emergency Management Agency said floods in Nigeria have killed 229 people since the start of the year. In late August, flooding killed 49 people and displaced thousands in three states – Jigawa, Adamawa and Taraba – after heavy rains in the country’s northeast. 

In 2022, Nigeria experienced its worst flood in more than a decade, which killed more than 600 people, displaced around 1.4 million and destroyed 440,000 hectares of farmland. ‘’We are just entering the peak of the season, particularly in the northern part of the country, and the situation is very dire,” Ezekiel told Reuters. 

The floods have also destroyed farmlands, affecting around 693 hectares of agricultural land. Nigeria is battling double-digit inflation, which has been stoked by high food prices. Heavy rains have added to problems in the farming sector, where farmers are deserting their farms in the northeast due to repeated attacks by armed individuals. 

Many officials remain worried, and are bracing for more destruction as the rainy season is yet to peak. 

“We have September and October to come. The rain is much more in September than in August, so only God knows what the state will be when we reach that time,” Haruna Mairiga of the Jigawa Emergency Management Agency told Al Jazeera. 

The question is, what caused the floods? The answer is: the authorities say the
floods were caused by the flow of excessive rainwater amid the rainy season, which lasts from June to September in the West Africa country.

 The Alau Dam, located in the Konduga community just a few kilometres outside Maiduguri, burst its banks after being overwhelmed by the heavy rainfall, officials say. The dam was built in 1986 to provide farmers in Maiduguri with water for irrigation. In many instances, it also helps control flooding from the Ngadda River, which on occasion gets higher-than-normal inflows from water resources that trace back to the massive Lake Chad.

 In 1994, heavy rains caused Alau to break, inundating Maiduguri and its surrounding areas. In 2012, the dam broke and flooded communities nearby. The number of those affected in 1994 remains unclear, while a government report said multiple flood events across several states in 2012 killed 363 people and displaced 3.8 million. The other question is, what’s happening to people in flood-affected areas? 

Thousands of people are still trapped in buildings and on trees in flood-affected areas, said Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Maiduguri. 

To exit their homes, people must use canoes, which are not readily available in most places. In many places, water levels have not receded. Although authorities are now helping with search and rescue, initially survivors were forced to wait for hours, and were mostly helped by volunteers with minimal resources.

*Dr Moses Amweelo is a former Minister of Works, Transport and Communication. He is currently a part time lecturer at IUM and UNAM. He earned a doctorate in Technical Science, Industrial Engineering and Management from the International Transport Academy (St Petersburg, Russia).