Flood submerges Anambra LGAs, displaces 34, 000 people
No fewer than 34, 000 person have vacated their homes with 9,000 presently taking refuge in various Holding Camps as a result of flood that invaded six Local Government Areas of Anambra state.
Mr Chukwudi Onyejekwe, a Director in Anambra State Emergency Management Agency (ASEMA) who led newsmen on tour of Anambra Eaat and Anambra West Local Government Areas disclosed this in Ifite-Ogwari, Anyamelum.
Onyejekwe who was joined by a team of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) from Enugu office described the situation in the area as a disaster of monumental proportion.
He said Anambra East, Anambra West and Ogbaru were completely submerged which Awka North, Anyamelum and Ihiala were partially submerged.
He said the Anambra government was responding to the emergency within the limits of resources available including creation of camps, evacuation of affected people and provision of minimum comfort for the displaced persons in camps.
Onyejekwe however lamented that much was still needed to appropriately address the challenge at hand.
“It is a pathetic situation, Anambra is under siege because about 50 per cent of the land area of the state is submerged.
“In Enugu-Otu, Mpku-Nando, Eziagulu-Otu the towns are deserted people are fishing in their homes” he said.
On his part, Mr Chinedu Ekeh, who represented Fred Anusim, the Enugu Zonal Coordinator said their mission was to have physical assessment of the disaster to enable the agency plans its responses.
Ekeh decided the extent if damage and the impact on the lives of the people.
“Our mission is to carryout on-the-spot assessment of the situation here based on NIMET and NEHSA prediction on flood and we have seen the devastation.
“The six local governments are under water, at Eziagulu-Otu I was moved to tears, the place is totally submerged people are displaced, a few of them were stuck upstairs and they now fish in the streets and market areas.
“The areas affected are the inhabited areas, we shall take the report to the office,” he said.
Some residents of the flooded area were still living on the first floor of their houses and using canoes to move about.
Churches and schools are shut with no operational medical facilities in the area.
Kachi Okoye who was seen fishing at the Village Square said they could bkt all desert their ancestral land as there should be some people guarding the place.
He said flood came suddenly and that people did not have time to harvest their farm produce which were rotting away in the soil.
