The situation is frightening. The flooding covers approximately 40 percent of the city's area, says Zubaida Umar at the equivalent of Nigeria's emergency management agency.
The agency now fears that the number of people who need to leave their homes can rise to one million. There are 1.9 million inhabitants in the city.
The Alau dam on the Ngadda River, 20 kilometers south of Maiduguri, burst over the weekend, and more than 23,000 households were directly flooded when the water rushed out. The authorities have sent rescue teams with medical equipment and canoes.
We have sent doctors to the temporary collection camps for those who have become homeless, says Zubaida Umar.
It is important to help on site, as even the large hospital in Maiduguri has been partially flooded. The authorities now fear that waterborne diseases will spread in the area.
