Africa’s most populous state devastated by deadly floods (VIDEOS)

Dozens of people have been killed and others trapped after devastating floods swept through Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State. Militants, including the notorious Boko Haram terrorists, have been leading an armed rebellion in the area for more than a decade.

According to local officials cited by Reuters, the flooding is the worst the state has seen in two decades.

A deluge struck the region on Tuesday when heavy rains caused the Alau Dam to burst its banks, Nigerian authorities said on Wednesday. Regional governor Babagana Zulum told reporters while visiting the reagion that the flood had buried a quarter of the state’s capital, Maiduguri, and affected up to 1 million people.

A post office and the Maiduguri Teaching Hospital were all damaged, President Bola Tinubu also said in a statement, while expressing his “heartfelt” sympathy to families who have lost their means of livelihood.

The water submerged entire residential areas and damaged buildings, including the Borno State Museum Park, where officials said an unspecified number of reptiles, including crocodiles and snakes, had escaped into affected communities.

Ali Abatcha Don Best, the zoo’s general manager, said the incident killed about 80% of the animals.

In a statement late Thursday, Zubaida Umar, the director of the country’s Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said search and rescue operations have intensified.

“The current trend of flooding indicates that 29 states and 172 LGAs [local government areas] have been impacted; 1,048,312 people are affected; 625,239 displaced, and 259 deaths recorded unfortunately,” Umar said following an emergency meeting.

Sirajo Garba, NEMA’s northeast zonal coordinator, earlier stated that the military was involved in evacuation efforts in Maiduguri. He said that as of Wednesday, over 1,000 people had been rescued, with more than 70,000 displaced persons profiled in seven camps.

“We have deployed high suspension vehicles and boats, and the military is working on a search and rescue operation,” he told local media on Wednesday, adding that the number of casualties “cannot be ascertained now.”

According to Al Jazeera, officials have recovered “many” bodies, including that of a baby whose family waited for rescue for 36 hours after seeking shelter on a boat that later capsized.

In response to the disaster, the Nigerian government reopened several camps, including the Bakassi camp, with local media reporting that  internally displaced persons (IDP) were arriving at the facility by boat. The Bakassi IDP camp, which had been shut down last year, had been a home for tens of thousands of people who had been displaced by Boko Haram’s 15-year insurgency war.