Rescuers Fan Out After Nigeria Flooding Kills More than 150

Search teams fanned out Saturday from the epicenter of deadly flash flooding in Nigeria, the Red Cross said, as the death toll from heavy rains in the north-central market town of Mokwa topped 150.
The sharp rise in the toll came as bodies were recovered nearly 10 kilometers (six miles) from the town, where more than 250 buildings were levelled and two bridges were swept away, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, told AFP.

Husseini said the toll could rise further, with bodies being swept down the powerful Niger River.

Gideon Adamu, head of the Red Cross in Niger state, told AFP that search teams were heading toward Jebba, on the opposite side of the waterway’s swampy banks.

Mokwa was hit by torrential rains Wednesday night into Thursday, with the flooding displacing more than 3,000 people, Husseini said. There were 121 injured in hospital, Adamu said, and more than 100 people were missing.

Nigeria’s rainy season, which usually lasts six months, is just getting started for the year.