Down pour uproots tree along Airport Road

The continuous rains in Accra over the past three days have uprooted a mahogany tree along the Airport - Tetteh Quarshie Road, with the trunk, which fell on the road creating heavy vehicular traffic.

At 0930 hours, some officials of the Ghana Police Service and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly were spotted by the Ghana News Agency directing the traffic, while other chopped the tree to ensure free flow of traffic.

Another tree along the Liberation Road near the National Theatre was also brought down by the down pour; but it landed on the side of the road.

Meanwhile leaders of four major parties in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), New Patriotic Party (NPP), Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) and the Peoples National Convention (PNC) joined forces to tour flood hit areas in Accra, on Thursday.

They are: National Chairmen – Mr Kofi Portuphy of the NDC, Mr Paul Afoko of the NPP, Alhaji Ahmed Ramandan of the PNC, and Ms Samia Yaba Nkrumah of the CPP.

The leaders collectively called for a national effort to deal with the perennial flooding in Accra; and also pledged for a bi-partisan support to the government to take drastic measures to deal with the situation

The political leaders also called on President John Dramani Mahama to act immediately to deal with the causes of the flood, especially structures in water ways.

A Ghana News Agency monitoring team has observed that scores of companies along the flood prone areas of Accra have been submerged.

Some major casualties were along the Graphic Road, and they include Pepsi, Rana Motors, Toyota, Zenith Bank and Hassanco Enterprise.

Meanwhile, scores of Ghanaians have also started thronging the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to catch a glimpse of the burnt GOIL Filling station that killed nearly 90 people and consumed some structures.

The GOIL filling station near the GCB Bank towers was gutted on Wednesday amidst heavy flooding.

Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama on Thursday said the Government had no option than to employ “drastic” measures to staunch the perennial flooding of the country’s capital city.

He observed that only a scientific and strategic approach to solving the infrastructural design of Accra would see an end to the seasonal catastrophe.

President Mahama made these remarks during a tour of some flood-hit areas of Accra.

He said: “We will have to take some measures to be able to avoid this happening in the future.”

“Often when these measures are drastic, you have a lot of sympathy and pressure not to take those measures but I think that the time has come for us to remove houses out of water ways and the public should understand that it is necessary to save everybody else.”

In explaining that Accra is a flood-prone city as a result of its location, President Mahama pointed out that human activities also contributed to the disaster.

“Littering in the drains and all those negative practices make it difficult for the water that is coming from the mountains to reach the sea,” he said.

President Mahama expressed his condolences to the families of those who had lost their lives in the floods and the fuel station fire and commended the security agencies for their swift reaction in fighting to minimize the number of casualties.

“This loss of lives is catastrophic, almost unprecedented,” he said.

He said with other government officials, he had not slept throughout the night, ‘monitoring what was happening.’

The heavy floods had swept through Accra, causing devastating damages to lives and property, whilst some roads are now unmotorable.

The floods destroyed homes, cut off electricity and forced the closure of schools and shops.