Death toll from Africa floods touches 70-UN

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* Death toll touching 70, some 430,000 affected

* Floods pose food security threat in coming weeks

* Flood cycle must be addressed at Copenhagen summit



By Gabriela Matthews

DAKAR, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Flooding in West Africa has claimed some 70 lives and left hundreds of thousands facing health risks in the rainy season, a senior U.N. humanitarian official told Reuters on Sunday.

The flooding, an annual phenomenon which this year has hit impoverished Burkina Faso and at least five other countries, has destroyed precious grain stocks and so could trigger a food security crisis in weeks to come.

"We can already count close to 70 deaths," Herve Ludovic de Lys, region head for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in an interview.

In total, around 430,000 people in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania and Ivory Coast have seen damage to their homes or are facing health risks linked to the lack of fresh water, deteriorating hygiene or other problems, he said.

"People are being sheltered in schools in pretty deplorable conditions," he said of the situation in Burkina Faso, where aid workers this week said flood water had smashed bridges and roads and was hampering emergency humanitarian work.

"Many traditional granaries have been destroyed and that could pose problems further down the line for food security," he added of the regional impact of rains due to last another three weeks and even intensify towards the end of the season.

In 2007, about 300 people were killed and more than 800,000 affected throughout West Africa when homes, crops and infrastructure were washed away.

"We are in competition, so to speak, with Latin America and the Caribbean because there too it is hurricane and flood season," de Lys said of the scarcity of aid resources, adding that OCHA was considering launching an appeal for Burkina Faso.

The flood and drought cycle which hits many African countries each year is a major obstacle to economic development and African leaders want a U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen this year to acknowledge a link with global warming.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said last week Africa could veto any deal in December which did not compensate the continent. He did not say how much African officials would seek but some experts have suggested a figure of $200 billion a year.

De Lys said African nations needed help with investment in improving infrastructure and equipment to tackle the impact of climate change, while funding was vital to deal with migration as flood and other damage forced people to leave their homes.

"This is a conference which must openly discuss the human impact of climate change," de Lys said. (Writing by Mark John; Editing by Charles Dick)