Rainstorm Displaces 600  

Over 600 people, including children and pregnant women, have been displaced by heavy rainstorm that swept across some parts of the Volta Region.

The rainstorm, which occurred in three districts – Ho Municipality, Ketu North and South Tongu – is reported to have occurred over the weekend.

The National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) is yet to come to the aid of the affected persons as they are said to have resource constraints.

The Deputy Regional Director, Pascal Agbagba who confirmed the situation, noted that his outfit had forwarded an assessment report on the damages to the national headquarters of NADMO for assistance.

He therefore gave the assurance that 'Looking at the severity of this case, within one week, we should have some response from the headquarters.'

A tour of the affected area indicated that several homes and schools had their roofs ripped off, hence, rendering hundreds of people homeless and disrupting educational activities in some communities in the three districts.

At Hodzo in the Ho municipality and Devego in the Ketu-North district, the rainstorm destroyed the entire roof of 6-unit classroom blocks as well as some individual houses.

The South Tongu district was the worst hit which had over 90 houses destroyed in Agbagorme, Agbakorpe and Lakpo in addition to three basic schools in the area.

Pregnant Woman Escapes Death

The tragedy nearly claimed the life of a pregnant woman at Agbagorme as she was hit by a falling block from her building, which left her unconscious for some hours, before being resuscitated at a hospital at Sogakope.

Head teacher of Agbakorpe RC Primary School, Augustine Dzotorgbe, whose school had a whole classroom block ripped off by the rainstorm, said text books and other teaching materials were destroyed in the heavy downpour.

“I mean, we just have a multiple grade class to maintain the children as teaching and learning go on. We are waiting for philanthropists to come and assist us to reroof our classroom block.”

The DCE for South Tongu, Samuel Mawuko Eworyie who toured the affected areas, expressed worry over the situation. He assured that as a matter of urgency, the assembly would gather resources to roof the affected school buildings.

(freduoo@gmail.com)

From Fred Duodu, South Tongu