Floods leave at least 500 dead in Nigeria

The rains have also displaced up to 600,000 people from their homes, according to the Emergency Management Agency, which warns of more flooding.

Nigeria's flood crisis has caused at least 500 deaths and forced the displacement of more than 600,000 people from their homes, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

NEMA warned of more catastrophic flooding for states along the Niger and Benue rivers, explaining that three of Nigeria's overfilled reservoirs were expected to overflow.

The most recent episode of deaths amid the floods occurred when a boat, carrying more than 80 people, capsized on Friday in the state of Anambra, in the southeast of the country, while people tried to escape the floods that they had raised to the roofs.

Recent flooding in the area has displaced up to 600,000 people, according to NEMA.

In another episode, at least six people, including a young child, were killed in Kogi's hardest-hit district of Ibaji, which state governor Yahaya Bello said was "100 percent underwater."

Bello described the flooding as a "humanitarian tragedy" while recalling that the Kogi capital, Lokoja, is the meeting point of West Africa's largest rivers, the Niger and the Benue.

Also, the Kogi Red Cross Society reported that "many people have been left homeless in Lokoja... as houses were submerged by the floods," adding that some of the main roads in the capital city were submerged. .

Many parts of Nigeria are prone to annual flooding and coastal cities like Lagos are even more vulnerable to seasonal flooding.

Nigerian authorities are heeding the call for climate finance as the country joins its African counterparts in seeking an expansion of climate finance ahead of next month's COP27 climate summit in Egypt.