Bolga Flooded
ABOUT FOUR hours of continuous rainfall in parts of the Upper East region has flooded many communities in the Bolgatanga municipality.
Communities that were seriously affected by the downpour included Sawaba, Nyariga, Pobaga and Damweo, where many houses were almost submerged in water.
The Kolaa River on the Zuarungu road which passes through Sawaba and Damweo overflowed and flooded many acres of farms including millet and rice farms.
It appears that the same houses are always hit by the floods and yet nothing serious has been done to relocate the owners from their present locations.
A section of the ECOWAS Trunk road also got flooded as a resulting of the overflowing water from the gutters along the road.
The Upper East Regional Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation, Patrick Akake, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE , criticized building permit personnel for allowing people to build on low land areas.
He added that his office had been approaching owners of houses that might have been built on waterways or in flood prone areas, but then the owners were always quick to produce valid documents to prove ownership of the parcel of land.
In his view, it would take the willingness and commitment from the powers that be in the region to demolish houses that were on waterways or in flood prone areas, so as to avoid future flood disasters.
Some of the owners of affected houses claimed that their houses were flooded because people had built on waterways and had diverted the course of streams and rain water.
They told DAILY GUIDE that their houses would not have been flooded if others had not built on waterways.
Hundreds of persons have been rendered homeless till their residences dry up while many properties have been destroyed by the flood.
From Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga