KASTINA TRAGEDY: Flood Kills 30, Destroys 300 Houses

Thirty people have died and over 300 houses have been destroyed due to Monday’s flooding at Jibia Local Government Area of Kastina State.
The affected communities are Kwata, Dantudu, Sabuwar, Tukare, Tsohuwar Tukare and Ungwar Mai Kwari.
The heavy downpour, which, according to some survivors, started around 11 p.m and subsided by 1 a.m, caused river channels in the affected villages to overflow their banks, resulting in the loss of lives and sweeping away of several vehicles, motorcycles and farmlands.
According to the District Head of Jibia, Alaji Rabe Rabi’u, who confirmed the development in a telephone interview during an assessment tour of the affected areas, the incident was “highly devastating.”
He said: “As I speak now, we have found the bodies, including mothers and children, and many are still missing. Over 260 cows, sheep and goats also died in the flood.”
The district head, however, called on the federal and state governments to come to their aid, considering the devastating nature of the flood. “It is only the government that can assist us because the situation is beyond our financial strength,” he added.
Also confirming the incidence, the information officer in charge of the local government, Sa’ad Suleiman, said the situation was aggravated by house building structures on water channels and dumping of refuse in drains.
According to him, the state government had earlier embarked on dredging of rivers, canals and clearing of drains in the state, urging residents to inculcate the habit of disposing refuse properly.
The natural disaster also sacked many residents from their homes and shops as their apartments were flooded, thereby rendering thousands homeless.
Meanwhile, the executive secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Dr. Aminu Waziri, who confirmed the number of deaths, said the agency’s officers were moving to the affected communities in order to ascertain the number of casualties and houses affected for onward transmission to government for intervention.
It would be recalled that the governor of Kastina state had recently planned on working with the World Bank to spend 50 billion to tackle erosion and flooding in the state.

By Oluwaseyi Jeje