Researchers blame this year’s deluge, which coincides with a crucial crop season, on global warming, saying that rising temperatures are seeing the air store more water vapor.Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria are affected.The Famine Early Warning Systems Network reports that the heavy rains in the western half of the semi-arid Sahel zone, which borders the southern Sahara Desert from Africa’s west to east coasts, are likely to persist.
Benjamin Sultan, a researcher on climate change with a focus on West Africa at the French government’s Research Institute for Sustainable Development, said, ‘The dramatic flooding that we’re currently seeing in West Africa coincides with the monsoon season.It’s becoming more and more intense every year, causing deadly floods as we’re seeing in the Sahel.’.
The floods are hitting a region that’s among the least prepared globally for climate-related disasters, with little money available to buffer infrastructure against adverse weather.Chad ranks last in an index of 187 countries assessed by the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative for climate-change vulnerability, Mali 180th, Niger 176th and Nigeria 152nd.
Measure Your Hunger.
In Chad, the floods have swept across almost the entire country, resulting in at least 340 deaths and rendering 1. 5 million homeless, according to the government.They’ve destroyed about 160,000 dwellings, submerged 260,000 hectares (642,470 acres) and drowned 60,000 livestock.
A spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke, stated at a UN press briefing last week that ‘there will be a lot less food available now and in the future in a country where 3. 4 million people already face acute hunger – the highest level of food insecurity ever recorded in Chad.’ The country has flooded farmland and drowned livestock.
Neighboring Niger is also hard-hit — with 400,000 made homeless and 273 killed — while Mali has recorded 62 deaths and 345,000 people are without shelter, according to the governments and aid groups working in the two nations.Food prices are rising in Niger as transport routes to markets become impassable.
A farmer in the Agadez region of Niger, Mamadou Tidiani, said, ‘I’ve never seen rains like this.It’s too early to say how much of the harvest that was destroyed, but I fear it will be bad.’ Mamadou Tidiani is married with seven children.
The World Health Organization reports that 201 people have died and over 610,000 have been displaced by floods in Northern Nigeria, which has also been severely affected.
The situation is unprecedented, especially in the mostly desert northern part of the country, according to Tahir Hamid Nguilin, Chad’s finance minister and chairman of the committee responsible for preventing flooding.The floods have impacted the production of millet, corn, sorghum, and rice.
A large part of the Sahara will get more than 500% of its normal September rainfall, according to Severe Weather Europe, a blog that publishes meteorological forecasts.The International Rescue Group described the floods across the region as the worst in 30 years.
The heavy rains that have killed several people in Europe, including Poland, Austria, and Germany, are synchronized with the wet weather in western Africa.
–With assistance from Emele Onu, Matthew Hill, Paul Richardson and Ana Monteiro.
(Updates with floods being worst in 30 years in second last paragraph.).
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(Bloomberg) – According to assessments from the government and relief organizations, floods in a large area of central and West Africa have destroyed crops in a region already short on food and beset by insecurity, uprooting at least 2. 9 million people and killing roughly 1,000.
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The heavy rains in the western half of the semi-arid Sahel zone, which borders the southern Sahara Desert from Africa’s west to east coasts, are likely to persist, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.Researchers blame this year’s deluge, which coincides with a crucial crop season, on global warming, saying that rising temperatures are seeing the air store more water vapor.Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria are affected.
Benjamin Sultan, a researcher on climate change with a focus on West Africa at the French government’s Research Institute for Sustainable Development, said, ‘The dramatic flooding that we’re currently seeing in West Africa coincides with the monsoon season.It’s becoming more and more intense every year, causing deadly floods as we’re seeing in the Sahel.’.
The floods are hitting a region that’s among the least prepared globally for climate-related disasters, with little money available to buffer infrastructure against adverse weather.Chad ranks last in an index of 187 countries assessed by the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative for climate-change vulnerability, Mali 180th, Niger 176th and Nigeria 152nd.
Measure Your Hunger.
The government of Chad reports that the floods have destroyed approximately 160,000 dwellings, submerged 260,000 hectares (642,470 acres), and drowned 60,000 livestock, leaving at least 340 people dead and 1. 5 million homeless.
‘With flooded farmland and drowned livestock, there will be a lot less food available now and in the future in a country where 3. 4 million people already face acute hunger – the highest level of food insecurity ever recorded in Chad,’ Jens Laerke, a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman, told a UN press briefing last week.
Food prices are rising in neighboring Niger as transport routes to markets become impassable.According to governments and aid groups working in the two countries, neighboring Mali has recorded 62 deaths and 345,000 people without shelter.Neighboring Niger has also been severely affected, with 400,000 people rendered homeless and 273 fatalities.
‘I’ve never seen rains like this,’ said Mamadou Tidiani, a farmer with seven children in Niger’s country’s Agadez region.’It’s too soon to say how much of the harvest that was destroyed, but I fear it will be bad.’.
Northern Nigeria hasn’t been spared either with floods displacing more than 610,000 and killing 201, according to the World Health Organization.
The situation is unprecedented, especially in the mostly desert northern part of the country, according to Tahir Hamid Nguilin, Chad’s finance minister and chairman of the committee responsible for preventing flooding.The floods have impacted the production of millet, corn, sorghum, and rice.
A large part of the Sahara will get more than 500% of its normal September rainfall, according to Severe Weather Europe, a blog that publishes meteorological forecasts.The International Rescue Group described the floods across the region as the worst in 30 years.
The heavy rains that have killed several people in Europe, including Poland, Austria, and Germany, are synchronized with the wet weather in western Africa.
–with help from Ana Monteiro, Emele Onu, Matthew Hill, and Paul Richardson.
(Updates: the second-to-last paragraph details the worst floods in 30 years.).
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©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
