No fewer than 200 houses located in various communities in Ebonyi State have been destroyed by flood that wrecked havoc across the state on Monday.
The flood also ravaged farmlands and destroyed crops worth millions of naira in eight local government areas of the state.
Areas mostly affected are Abakaliki, where houses were submerged by water; and Akpoha town in the Afikpo North Local Government Area of the state, where rice farms were destroyed.
Speaking during the visit of the officials of the State Emergency Management Agency, who were on assessment tour of the devastated rice farms, the Coordinator of Amaoha Development Center, David Egwu, described the flooding of farms and houses as a national disaster and appealed to both the state and federal governments to intervene and assist the victims.
He said, “This flooding was caused by the Obubra River located in Cross River State and the Akpoha River located in Ebonyi State.”
The Executive Secretary of Ebonyi State Emergency Management Agency, Pastor Ken Nwabueze, enjoined people living in flood-prone areas to relocate to Internally Displaced Persons camps created by the agency for safety.
The SEMA boss regretted that the flood disaster would affect the economic base of farmers, explaining that the Nigerian Meteorological Agency had predicted that eight local government areas of the state would be affected by flood in 2017.
He said, “This is not the end of flooding going by what MIMET predicted; more flooding will come.
“Our people must be very cautious; if you have your cassava farms in the flood-prone areas, go to other areas. If you live in the areas, relocate to IDPs camps.
“We have seen what flood had caused in the rice farms and in the residential areas; we will write our reports to both the federal and state governments. We believe that there will be interventions.”
In a related development, victims of flood disaster that occurred in Abakaliki capital city in June 2017, have received relief materials from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA ).
Speaking during the distribution of the relief materials in Abakaliki on Wednesday, the Executive Secretary of the Ebonyi State Emergency Management Agency,Nwabueze, commended both the Ebonyi and Federal Government for their continued intervention and assistance .
He said, “Upon our request for assistance to assuage the sufferings of the victims, the Federal Government supplied to Ebonyi State relief materials to the victims,” he said.
In her remarks, the Assistant Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency, South-East Zone, Mrs. Benedicta Enyiuche, said the relief materials would get to the affected individuals and attributed the delay in the supply of the materials to the prevailing economic situation in the country.
The items distributed included bags of parboiled rice, beans, bags of granulated sugar, carton of tin tomatoes, pieces of mosquito nets, pieces of blankets, pieces of nylon mats, cartons of bath soap, cartons of detergents, bundles of roofing sheets and packets of roofing nails, among other items.
Source: ( Premium Times )
