FLOODS CAUSE HAVOC IN AFRAM PLAINS (BACK PAGE, NOV 2, 2010)

TWO thousand and eight hundred persons in 120 villages and towns along the Volta Lake in the Kwahu East, Kwahu South and Kwahu North districts in the Eastern Region have been rendered homeless by floods.
Besides, the floods have also destroyed 850 buildings and more than 1,800 farms, markets and roads are submerged.
This was confirmed when the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, accompanied by the respective District Chief Executives for the Kwahu South, Kwahu East and Kwahu North districts, Mr Joseph O. Sasu, Mr Samuel Asamoah and Mr Charles Evans Apraku, as well as officials from the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), led by its Eastern Regional Co-ordinator, Mr Ranford Boakye, visited some of the affected communities in the three districts last Friday.
The visit was used to sensitise the affected persons, most of whom were reluctant to relocate to high grounds to avoid the damaging effects of the floods.
In the Kwahu South District, 490 persons have been displaced and 322 houses destroyed in 22 communities, while 1,202 persons had been affected in 74 communities in the Kwahu North District (Afram Plains).
In the Kwahu East District, a transformer belonging to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) that supplies power to the Kotosu Water Treatment Plant had submerged, threatening the supply of water to health and educational institutions as well as various households in the area.
One thousand and two persons in 74 communities have been affected in the Kwahu North, where a number of markets and roads, have been flooded making them unmotorable.
At Ekye Amanfrom and Agordeke in the Kwahu North, the floodwaters have inundated the passenger terminals at the two harbours, making it difficult for the pontoons and canoes to berth for passengers.
During the tour, the delegation presented a number of relief items worth GH¢8,800 to the affected persons. The items comprised 800 bags of rice, 40 cartons of soaps, 100 pieces each of bowls and buckets, 20 bales of used clothes, 500 pieces each of plates and cups and 22 bales of poly-mats.
The beneficiary communities included Kotosu and Asempanye in the Kwahu South District, Adawso and Asubone Odumase in the Kwahu South District.
The rest were Ekye Amanfrom, Gadokope, Dororotopong-Kodome, Bridgeano, Teacher Kope and Agordeke in the Kwahu North District.
During the tour, Mr Ofosu Ampofo and his entourage came face-to-face with the threatening nature of the increasing volume of the floodwater, which had caused extensive damage to buildings and personal belongings of the affected persons.
Amazed at the increasing volume of the flood, which, at the time of the visit, could take less than five minutes to make some of the houses in the Kwahu South and Kwahu North Districts to submerge, Mr Ofosu Ampofo appealed to the international community and the country’s development partners to come to the aid of the government to provide the people with their basic needs such as blankets, used clothes and mattresses.
He also called on the three district assemblies to immediately go to the aid of the affected persons by providing them with their basic needs and water tanks at vantage points to serve drinking water to the affected communities to curb the spread of any water-borne diseases.