Nigeria floods kill scores and wash away farmland, raising food security fears

Women walk along a flooded street in Lagos (Sunday Alamba/AP)

Weeks of flooding have killed nearly 200 people in Nigeria and washed away homes and farmland, the country’s disaster management agency said, further threatening food supplies, especially in the hard-hit northern region.

The floods, blamed on poor infrastructure and badly maintained dams, have killed 185 people and displaced 208,000 in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states, the National Emergency Management Agency said on Friday, triggering frantic efforts to evacuate hundreds of thousands to makeshift shelters.