A nine-year old boy lost his life at Nkanfoa, a suburb of Cape Coast, when the room in which he was sleeping collapsed during a heavy downpour last Sunday night.
Mr Kwame Essoun, uncle of the deceased who gave the boy�s name as Aboagye explained that the boy, his mother and two other siblings were asleep around 2100 hours when the rains began. He said the others managed to escape, but Aboagye was trapped to death.
This came to light, when Madam Ama Benyiwa Doe, Central Regional Minister, paid a visit to the community to assess the extent of damage caused by the downpour. The body of the deceased had since been deposited at the Central Regional Hospital morgue for autopsy. Another resident, Ms Sarah Kumi informed the Minister that a 12-year old girl, Florence Owusu, was also seriously injured in a similar incident about two weeks ago, following a downpour, and was receiving treatment at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.
The Minister paid a visit to Yamoransa, a flood-prone area near Cape Coast, where Mr Daniel Obesi, the Regional Hydrologist, attributed the problem there to the small size of the main culvert in the town that made it unable to contain the pressure of water when it rained. He said a stream that flowed from Abakrampa through Amosima and Akroma to Moree in the Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese District also flowed through that same culvert, causing the town to flood when it rained.
Mr Obesi said the Hydrological Department had appealed to the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly to provide funds to expand the culvert from four to 12 feet and expressed the hope that when this was done flooding in the area could be halted. Madam Benyiwa Doe expressed her condolences to the family of the deceased and the injured and pledged to help ensure the construction of a new culvert for the safety of residents.
She expressed worry about the lack of maintenance on buildings and asked the owners of dilapidated houses to endeavour to renovate them. Mr Tony Joe Arkorful, Acting Regional Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation who accompanied the Minister, promised to provide some relief items to the flood victims. He expressed concern that residents at Nkanfoa had failed to adhere to safety measures and that NADMO had embarked on educational campaigns to encourage the people to repair leakages on their roofs.
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