Flood causes deaths and damage in Upper East Region

Bolgatanga, Aug. 28, GNA - Five people died and others sustained injuries when buildings collapsed during a heavy rainfall in some parts of Upper East Region last weekend, Mr Alhassan Samari, Upper East Regional Minister said on Tuesday.

Three persons died in Builsa District while two others died in Bawku West District where the floods rose up to window level in most homes, causing mud buildings to collapse destroying stored foodstuffs. Speaking to the Press in Bolgatanga after a tour of the affected areas, Mr Samari said the displaced had taken refuge in schools and with relatives who lived in concrete houses.

Commenting on the effect of the rains on roads, he said the bad situation had become worse as motorable laterite roads had been washed away and some bridges damaged.

"Roads like the Bawku-Binduri, Bolgatanga-Nyariga, Dacheo-Bolgatanga, Navrongo-Sandema have been rendered impassable, forcing vehicles to discharge their passengers and goods to be carried across the other side on bicycles, donkeys and canoes", he said. Mr Samari said exports and imports such as cattle and other livestock, onion, timber products, salt, and cola nuts, had been temporarily suspended and articulated trucks loaded with some of these exports and imports stranded at Kulungugu as the main steel bridge on the Bawku-Kulungugu road, an international route which links Ghana to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, collapsed as a result of eroded concrete pillars that supported it.

Mr Samari appealed to the National Disaster Management Office (NADMO) and NGOs in the relief sector to provide temporary relief in the form of tents, food and household utensils. He said government would assist in mobilising the needed resources to rehabilitate roads and bridges to enable foodstuffs to be carted from the rural areas to marketing centres. Mr Samari urged contractors who had been awarded road projects and other infrastructure to double up their efforts and provide satisfactory services to avoid the present situation in future. The Regional Minister toured Bawku East, Bawku West and Bongo Districts.

He was accompanied by Upper East Regional Engineers of Department of Feeder Roads, Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) and the Regional Directors of Ministry of Food and Agriculture and NADMO. The Region has been experiencing rains daily for the past two weeks and buildings and farms in low lying areas submerged in water.