Nigeria flood victims recall worst disaster

ADAMU Yusuf was preparing to go to the Mokwa market Thursday morning last week when he heard his neighbour shouting - floodwaters were sweeping through the Nigerian town.

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Water had been building up for days behind an abandoned railway track that runs along the edge of the town, residents said.

It was not the first time heavy rains had accumulated behind the mud mounds on which the tracks stand, but it would soon be the deadliest.

The floods that hit Mokwa, in north-central Nigeria's Niger state, are the worst in living memory, with the death toll topping 150 and continuing to climb and hundreds feared missing.

Climate change has made weather swings in Nigeria more extreme, but it became clear that other human factors were also at play.

Floodwaters would usually pass through a couple of culverts in the mounds and run into a narrow channel.