West African Coast Braces for Flood Threat With Few Protections

(Bloomberg) -- West Africa’s coastal nations are bracing for deadly floods from their northern neighbors to sweep south, but money is tight and they face double jeopardy from rain as the wet season sets in.

Nigeria, Togo, Benin and Ghana are warning residents to be prepared after record-breaking rains hit the adjacent Sahel region last month, killing 1,000 people and affecting more than 5 million across West and Central Africa.

Poor drainage and heavier-than-usual rains is risking a repeat, said Kiswendsida Guigma, a meteorologist at the Red Cross Crescent Climate Center in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

“There is still a possibility for floods from the Sahel to flow down to southern countries,” he said. “It depends on the intensity of the rains” and that could be exacerbated by intense rain in coastal regions.

Extreme weather events also hit central Europe and the US in recent weeks, but the Sahel’s significantly higher death toll was a reminder that the cash-strapped region and poorly planned cities further south remain the most vulnerable.

Data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service shows coastal areas of Nigeria including Lagos, Africa’s biggest city with more than 25 million inhabitants, Benin and Togo, expect heavier-than-usual rains this month. The Volta Region in neighboring Ghana could also be affected.

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency has put coastal towns on high alert for this month and next. Humanitarian organizations are focused on “anticipatory action,” said Benson Agbro, director of disaster management at the Nigerian Red Cross.

“It’s probably ten times cheaper to take such action than to wait to respond after flooding has happened,” according to Agbro. “More importantly, you can save lives.” His organization has launched a 10 million Swiss franc ($11.7 million) appeal this year to fund its work in Africa’s most populous country.

Some Nigerian communities are carefully monitoring local rivers and are ready to beat drums to alert nearby households if levels rise too high, Agbro said. Officials are also watching weather data at emergency control centers across the country as “traditional and scientific methods” meet, he said. “As we speak, River Niger is already flooded.”

The Oti River Basin in Togo is also spilling over to farms and roads, an official of the country’s protection agency, Agence Nationale de la Protection Civile, said in response to questions.

That threat is worsened by the rising levels of rivers that flow south.

In Ghana, newspapers are publishing the water levels of the Volta River daily.

In Togo and Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, authorities worry that spillovers from the Sahel could flow into their shared river systems.

“Experts are monitoring the basins’ water levels and forecasting daily, weekly and seasonally to be prepared,” a spokesman for the Abidjan-based meteorological service, Sodexam, said in response to questions.

Deliberate water releases from dams upstream can increase the strain. Such moves, done preemptively to protect a dam from breaking and causing much worse flooding, can also catch communities off guard if they are not well communicated.

Regional power company Semaf SA, which operates Mali’s hydropower plants, is set to release water from the Felou and Manatali dams along the Senegal River, which has reached record-high levels.

That could leave northern Senegal vulnerable to flooding downstream.

In nearby Burkina Faso, the power utility, Sonabel, is also monitoring the levels of the White Volta River to know when to open the floodgates at its Bagré dam, a spokeswoman said. Releasing water there could potentially affect people in northern Ghana.

“We’ve sensitized the people so that they monitor the rise of the water level,” said National Disaster Management Organization of Ghana spokesman George Ayisi. “We’ve identified churches, schools and other buildings they can move to, far away from the river banks.”

But in many cases, people simply don’t have anywhere to go.

“There are still many gaps,” said the Nigerian Red Cross’ Agbro. “Gaps in housing, shelter, water and sanitation.”

--With assistance from Baudelaire Mieu and Arijit Ghosh.