Non-stop rain for several days also washed away or damaged 22,000 huts, more than 100 bridges and 46 schools and colleges, along with 1,500 hectares (3,750 acres) of food crops, and made 34,000 people homeless.

The government already declared three days of national mourning on first reports of the disaster in the Kpendjal region, some 650 kilometres (400 miles) north of Lome.