15 reported deaths from bad weather in Niger

By Aurore Bonny

DOUALA, Cameroon (AA) - Fifteen people have reportedly died from drowning and collapsed houses caused by heavy rains in Niger, officials said Thursday.

"The statistics of the Directorate General of Protection show that 2,237 households, or 18,921 people were victims of bad weather and fifteen people lost their lives as of 19 July 2022," according to a statement from the Operational Centre for Monitoring, Alert and Crisis Management (COVACC).

The agency encouraged residents to leave potentially flood-prone areas, avoid ruined houses and obstructing the passage of run-off water, keep from crossing flooded wadis and reconsider travel in times of rain.

Several regions of the country, including Maradi, Zinder, Tahoua, Diffa, Dosso and Tilaberi are affected by floods, according to the Directorate General of Civil Protection.

The situation is not unprecedented this time of year at the beginning of the rainy season. Last July, floods following heavy rains caused 77 deaths and affected more than 250,000 people in 47 departments with loss of property, crops and livestock, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

In August 2020, authorities reported 55 deaths and more than 150,000 people affected in the country of more than 24 million.

"These floods are basically the result of a problem linked to the phenomenon of urbanization, which is easily coupled with a lack of infrastructure and vision," said Beaugrain Doumongue, a specialist in new construction and rehabilitation techniques. He is a researcher and president of "Construire pour demain," a network promoting sustainable cities in Africa.

He told Anadolu Agency that the demographic dynamics and anarchic urban sprawl are because the deployment of cities is no longer truly managed or guided by urban master plans.

- Climate changes

"Cities generally exceed the limits set at the outset because there is no monitoring and land is managed in a singular manner,” he said. “As a result, this urbanization is accompanied by the development of housing which is not associated with adequate infrastructure development. This complicates water circulation patterns in a context where infrastructures are often non-existent or poorly adapted or badly dimensioned.”

It justifies the caused by the heavy rains, he said.

“These are factors, but not the only ones. Air and water mass transfers and flows are primarily driven by the rising temperature level due to the evolution of greenhouse gases. These gases are partly caused by human activity. We can trace the source of flooding if we want to by tracing the source of climate change with the production of these gases that lead to the evolution of the heat level. This changes oceanic currents and air currents and the pathways of these phenomena," according to Doumongue.

It causes condensation in particular areas, as is the case in Niger, where Lake Chad is almost completely disappearing, where there are high temperatures and very few trees, and where there are practices that do not encourage the regression of rainfall, all of which mean that the country is not prepared for this kind of disaster, he said.

Niger's communes are very vulnerable to the growing risks of climate change, such as floods, droughts and heat waves, while women and children are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events, according to World Bank.

“Climate change has a considerable impact on the frequency, incidence and duration of rainy episodes and periods of drought. Flooding has become increasingly recurrent since 2011 throughout the country, said the UNOCHA.