Monday, October 18, 2010

FLOODS SUBMERGE 55 COMMUNITIES (1B, OCT 18, 2010)

Fifty-five communities in the Central Gonja District in the Northern Region, including parts of the district capital, Buipe, have been submerged by flood water following the overflow of the Volta Lake on Saturday.
So far 25,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced by the floods, and 3,234 houses, including 50 school buildings, have either collapsed or been submerged.
As a result of the extensive damage, some of the schools in affected communities have been closed down temporarily.
The situation has compelled the people to resort to the use of canoes to commute in some of the communities while commercial activities have virtually come to a standstill because of the collapse of parts of the market at Buipe, which serves as the nerve centre of commercial activities.
Meanwhile, the Volta River Authority (VRA) has warned of further damage if people living around the perimeter of the Volta Lake fail to relocate to safer areas.
The VRA noted that this year, inflows into the Volta Lake had been above average and, therefore, the Akosombo Reservoir would rise to a level that had not been attained for the past 20 years.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Central Gonja, Mr Issifu Salisu Be-Awuribe, some personnel of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and other officials visited some of the affected communities.
They described the situation as unbearable and sent an SOS message to development organisations, philanthropic institutions and corporate bodies to assist the district provide temporary accommodation to thousands of people whose houses had collapsed following the floods.
Mr Be-Awuribe said records at the moment showed that 25,112 people had been displaced while 3,234 houses had collapsed or had been submerged.
“We are under pressure to provide temporary living places for these displaced persons and this is a major challenge to the assembly,” he lamented.
The DCE expressed fears about the spread of diarrhoea diseases because of the poor sanitation prevalent in some of the flooded communities.
He also indicated that the floods had affected education in the district adversely because 50 school buildings had collapsed and this had led to the closure of some of the worst affected schools.
Mr Be-Awuribe further mentioned that the floods were having a heavy toll on food production as more than 23,588 acres of farmlands had been submerged leading to the destruction of food crops, while a large number of livestock had perished.
He observed that the district had never experienced such severity of floods and destruction close to two decades, hence his appeal to development organisations and philanthropic institutions to come to the aid of the district.

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