“We have so far recovered 115 bodies and more are expected to be recovered because the flood came from far distance and washed people into the River Niger. Downstream, bodies are still being recovered,” a Niger State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) spokesman, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, told the AFP news agency. “So, the toll keeps rising.”

Torrential rains battered Mokwa late on Wednesday and lasted for several hours, washing away dozens of homes, with many residents still missing. A dam collapse in a nearby town caused the situation to rapidly deteriorate.

It is difficult to say how well-placed rescue efforts are to salvage people “because every rainy season we continue to see things like this,” said Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja.

“Warnings have been put out by authorities for people exposed or communities living along river banks to move to higher ground, especially when the rains start to peak, but every year we continue to see more and more lives and property damaged because of rainfall,” said Idris.

“In certain areas, proper drainage isn’t there … and most of these disasters take officials of emergency management agencies in various states by surprise even though there has been consistent flooding over the past three years,” said Idris. As a result, “a lot of people don’t believe it will be any different” this time around.

Mokwa is a key meeting and transit point for traders from the south and food growers in the north of the country.

In the town, Mohammed Tanko, 29, a civil servant, told reporters that he lost at least 15 people from the house he grew up in.