ACCRA— Many parts of Ghana’s Eastern region are experiencing devastating floods following two days of torrential rainfalls.
The Kyebi Court Complex, the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) office, the Kibi Presbyterian College of Education, the Kyebi demonstration school, and some other institutions and homes near the birim river were flooded for the first time in many decades.
It took the intervention of personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service and some volunteers to rescue victims including children trapped in schools, offices and homes.
In one of the videos which captured the incident on Friday and Saturday saw a family including women and children being scaled over a wall by the rescue team.
The wall of Kibi Presbyterian College of Education collapsed and a GETFUND project ongoing on campus was also submerged in the rains.
The flooding was caused by overflow of the birim river due to obstruction and diversion of its upstream watercourse by illegal miners.
“This is the first time in the anals of the area that Birim has overflown it’s banks and flooded the upstream. I was born here and did my O-Level at ABUSCO. I have lived here, became assembly member, worked at the Assembly I have never seen Birim river flood the upstream of the river because the volume of water in the upstream is not much to cause flooding it is the tributaries that increase the volume downstream. The cause is blockage by the illegal miners who have diverted the river course in multiple portions” Oteng Adjei, a former assembly member told Starr News.
Kyebi is not the only mining community affected.
Reports by officials of the National Disaster Management Organization in the various mining districts indicate more devastations in Denkyembour, Atewa, Fanteakwa South among others.
Meanwhile, about one hundred residents of Amanase in Ayensuano District were on Saturday displaced as river Ayensu also overflowed its banks following days of torrential rainfall.
The floods entered homes, shops and almost submerged significant part of the community.
The Akwadum stretch of the Koforidua to Suhum highway was blocked by severe flood caused by overflow of the Densu river Sunday.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK