An Overview of Flood Disaster, its Impacts on Education and Healthcare Deliveries in Kano State, Nigeria

This paper examines flood disaster, its impacts on education and healthcare deliveries in Kano State. Flood is among the most devastating natural disasters in Kano State, claiming lives and causing more damage to education and healthcare sectors than any other natural phenomena. Prolonged rainfall events are the most common causes of flooding in the state. These events are usually associated with several days, weeks or months long of continuous rainfall. Flooding disrupts the schooling of children and the delivery of education in the state, even in non-major floods, parents are not keen to send their children to school as they fear them treading dangerous flood waters en route to schools. Similarly, flooding has both direct and indirect impacts on health sector. Increased deaths and injury are direct effects of flooding having occurred in various parts of the state. Kano state’s fledgling health sector suffers setbacks from annual flooding disasters. Water-borne life-threatening disease epidemics like Typhoid, Cholera, and Dysentery are common during flooding. In a nutshell, floods provide a perfect breeding ground for parasites like mosquitoes which leads to a rise in the incidence of parasite borne diseases like Malaria. The paper concludes that, unless the causal factors of flooding are adequately controlled, the disaster would continue to impede educational and healthcare deliveries in Kano state. A major recommendation offered suggests that government should construct viable and quality drainage system in flood prone areas and around educational and healthcare facilities in the state in order to enable easy access and delivery of services.