In Accra flood
Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 24 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Several residents of Accra have been displaced by Tuesday’s torrential downpour with one person reported dead.
A young man whose name was given as Abubakar Barwuah was reported to have drowned in the Odaw River.
A visit to some of the affected areas including Glefe, the Kokomba market, and Kwame Nkrumah Circle showed a gloomy picture of the aftermath of the rain.
Though officials are yet to quantify the extent of damage, it is believed that the rain which started around 9:30pm and ended around 2am, destroyed properties running into several millions of cedis.
Several low-lying houses around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle were submerged.
At the time of the visit, some residents were seen removing their water-soaked properties including mattresses, sound systems, computers and other personal effects from their rooms to dry them outside, with signs of the water level marked on the walls.
Reports say Dansoman and its surrounding areas including Sakaman was the one of the hardest hit due to the ongoing road construction works in the area, coupled with the spillage of water from other water bodies nearby.
In areas like Korle Gonno, roofs of some buildings were also removed whilst houses were flooded, making it virtually impossible for some residents to come out of their houses until later in the day.
In some areas, the water was high up to the knee and waist levels whilst properties had been washed away.
At the Kokomba market and Glefe where a lot of slums have sprung up, people were finding it extremely difficult to clean the debris since their houses were still flooded.
Tuesday’s rain was the second in the month of February 2011.
Some residents of the Madina Redco Flats who called into Joy FM also reported of extensive flooding in the area.
One of such persons said after about two hours of rain, water levels in his home had reached the waist level forcing him and members of his household to move upstairs to safety.
“At the west point, the water level was above the windscreen level of my 4x4 vehicle. We had three 4x4 vehicles parked outside and they were all almost completely submerged,” he said.
The victim added that other homes in the area were not spared the fury of the floods.
A journalist at Alajo also had his residence flooded.
His only fear was of losing his Boer Bull dogs; but fortunately for him, they were rescued.
Flooding in Accra has become a perennial phenomenon with experts grappling with ways and means of containing it.
Over the past decade, floods have claimed several lives, and destroyed public infrastructure and property.
The rainfall of 4th July 1995 was the highest recorded in one event since 1936.
The 1995 floods caused damage to lives and property, disrupted infrastructural services like water supply, telephone, electricity, roads and railways. Seventeen (17) lives were lost in that flood while commercial and industrial activity was disrupted.
The most affected areas were those located within the flood plain of the Odaw and Onyasia rivers.
Experts attribute most of these floods that hit Accra to urbanization, reduced capacity of drainage systems, poor drains and culverts, maintenance, erosion and sediment delivery, obstructions, damming of water bodies, high rainfall intensities and tidal effects of the Korle Lagoon.