Volta Region: Floods displace 5,000 people
The Ketu South Municipal Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Torgbi Alossode II, has revealed that his outfit had no immediate relief items to alleviate the plight of flood victims in the southern part of the Volta Region.
More than 5,000 people in over 100 communities in the Ketu South, Anlo and Keta municipalities are now living in water-filled rooms and compounds after being displaced by floods caused by three weeks of persistent rains, with the last rain pouring intermittently for about 12 hours from last Friday to Saturday.
The situation has rendered many of the residents homeless as they have no place to seek shelter.Efforts to erect temporary shelters in places such as parks, schools and churches are also being hampered as tracts of lands and those places are all under water, with lagoons overflowing their banks.“We are studying the situation and assessing the damage prior to providing relief items to the displaced people,” Torgbi Alossode told the Daily Graphic in an interview yesterday.
AreasThe worst affected areas in the Ketu South municipality include Agbawema, Ahiatakukope, Awakorme, Hastukope, and Akame, and Aflao.
Others are Lokove, Ahorfe, Dzisakope, and Yegbefume, Agbozume and Klikor.In the Keta municipality the worst affected include Anlo Afiadenyigba, Keta, Vodza, the Keta Senior High and Technical School (KETASCO), Dzelukope, Kedzikope, as well as Anyako.
No casualty has been recorded.In the neighbouring Anlo District, the floods limited its presence to Tegbi and the Shime areas, according to the MP, Richard Kwami Sefe.Some pupils left stranded after the compound of their school at Agbozume was floodedUnprecedentedThe Member of Parliament (MP) for Keta, Kwame Dzudzorli Gakpey, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that places which never experienced floods in the past were also now submerged.
The situation has brought economic activities in the area to a standstill, holding the people hostage in their homes with no hope of relief in sight.Mr Gakpey described the situation in the Keta municipality as very bad, and called on NADMO to act promptly to supply relief items like tents and food to the displaced.He also appealed to public-spirited individuals and benevolent groups to come to the aid of the people.The MP for Ketu South, Abla Dzifa Gomashie, who toured her constituency last Sunday, called for the immediate closure of all schools in the municipality for the safety of the children.
“The roads leading to the schools which are not tarred are now covered with large volumes of water and that is dangerous,” she explained.The MP called on NADMO to live up to its responsibility and respond to the situation at hand promptly without any political consideration.
DredgingThe Ketu South Municipal Chief Executive, Maxwell Lugudor, said the floods at Agbozume and Klikor were caused by lagoons over-flowing their banks.He said the assembly was set to dredge the lagoons as an immediate response to the problem.In the long-term, Mr Lugudor said, the assembly would build mini dams in some of the communities to serve as receptacles to the floods.As of the time of filing this report, a team from the Volta Regional NADMO office, led by the Regional Director, Ivy Mawufemor Amewuga, had left Ho for a tour of the flood scenes.
