Heavy rains bring Nigeria worst floods in a decade

Over seven inches of rain fell in a six-hour downpour in southwestern Nigeria on August 26, 2011. Media reports citing the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture said that rainfall totals from the deluge broke all previous records for one-day precipitation totals since record-keeping began more than 50 years ago.

This image shows 24-hour rainfall totals across central Africa on August 26 as detected by NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission. Blue areas show where up to eight inches of rainfall was detected.

In Ibadan, a city in southwestern Nigeria, torrential rains damaged bridges and caused a dam to overflow, inundating buildings and collapsing mud houses. The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that at least 102 people died in the flooding, and thousands were displaced from their homes.

Map uses near-real-time data provided courtesy of TRMM Science Data and Information System at Goddard Space Flight Center.