Floods caused by climate change are wreaking havoc in Africa

It’s always the same story, the Niger River bursts its banks and the waters take away his home for weeks on end until he can return and assess the damage.

The house then needs to be cleaned, repaired, fumigated and repainted before the next rainy season.

Flooding is almost inevitable around Lokoja in Nigeria’s Kogi state, where Africa’s third-longest river flows into the main tributary of the Benue.

But across vast swaths of Africa, climate change has wreaked havoc on weather patterns and made floods much more severe, especially this year.

Devastating floods threaten the survival of millions of the continent’s inhabitants. Homes have been destroyed and crops destroyed, putting regional food security at risk.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa will be affected by torrential rains and severe floods in 2024.

“Very, very bad”

Residents and officials around Lokoja said floods first intensified in Kogi state in 2012 and have hit the area every year since then.

In 2022, Nigeria’s worst floods in a decade killed more than 500 people and displaced 1.4 million.

Sandra Musa, an adviser to the Kogi state governor’s emergency management agency, believes this year’s flooding has yet to reach the level of 2022, but warned it was “very, very bad”.

“Normally at this time of year the water level drops, but here it’s rising again,” she told AFP, estimating that the floods affected about two million people in the state.

Fatima Bilyaminu, a 31-year-old mother and shop owner, can only reach her home in Adankolo area of ​​Lokoya through the water by boat.

The swollen river rises almost to the windows, and water hyacinths float past the crumbling building.

“I lost everything. My bed, my soft chair, my closet, my kitchen equipment,” she told AFP.

With no money to rent a house elsewhere, she has no choice but to continue living in the small concrete building and renovating it, flood after flood.

Damage and displacement

According to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization, Africa bears the brunt of climate change, although it accounts for only about four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This year is set to overtake 2023 as the hottest year in the world.

“This year has been unusual in terms of rainfall, with many extreme events, which is one of the hallmarks of climate change,” said Aida Diongue-Niang of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In the Sahel region, which borders the Sahara desert, the volume, intensity and duration of rainfall were “unprecedented”, according to Amadou Diakite of the Mali Meteo weather service.

In Niger, some regions recorded up to 200 percent more rainfall than in previous years, the national meteorological service said. The waters threaten the historic center of the city of Agadez, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the northern desert.

At least 576 people have died and 1.9 million have been affected, or more than 10 percent of the population, due to torrential rains since July along the border with Chad, according to a report released by OCHA.

In neighboring Cameroon, torrential rains have destroyed more than 56,000 homes and flooded tens of thousands of hectares of crops, according to the UN.

Flooding swept through Guinea’s capital Conakry, while flooding in Monrovia reignited debate over building another city to serve as Liberia’s capital.

Entire areas of Mali’s capital, Bamako, were flooded, and waste and septic tank fluid seeped through the streets.

In August, due to rains, the roof of the centuries-old tomb of Askia in the Malian city of Gao collapsed.

Several countries postponed the start of the school year due to floods.

“Keep getting worse”

“It used to be a 10-year flood cycle and now we’ve moved to an annual cycle,” said Claire Barnes, a researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

“It’s only going to get worse if we keep burning fossil fuels,” she said.

As global temperatures rise, extreme weather events will become more frequent and more intense, scientists warn.

Experts estimate that by 2030, up to 118 million Africans already living in poverty will be affected by drought, floods and extreme heat.

Building along riverbanks also poses a risk, said Youssef Sane of Senegal’s meteorological agency, urging governments to think about the link between climate change and urbanization.

But the IPCC’s Dionge-Niang said the only way to tackle extreme weather is to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

“This is not about the region – it is about all of humanity,” she said.

© 2024 AFP