Rainstorm wreaks havoc in Edo, C/River

Uchechukwu Olisah, Benin City and Gill, Nsa-Abasi, Calabar - 12.03.2008

Several families have been rendered homeless in Edo and Cross River states following the destruction of their houses by a rainstorm which swept across parts of the states last weekend.

The rainstorm in Edo, which occurred in Irrua, headquarters of Esan Central Local Government Area, and in Ibillo, Epesa as well as Ugboshi-Afe, all in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, also damaged property worth millions of naira.

Residential and public buildings were affected by the rainstorm. The public buildings destroyed included Akho Primary School, Irrua, where the roof of a block of classrooms was blown off during the nearly one-hour rainfall.

At Ewu, also in Esan Central, the roofs of some residential buildings were also blown off, a development which had devastated the owners of the buildings.

Meanwhile, the chairman of Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, Chief Johnson Emasealu, has called on the state government to provide relief materials for the victims of the disaster.

Emasealu, who made the call through his spokesman, Mr. Kayode Alabi, described the havoc wreaked by the rainstorm as a sad experience for the people, saying the victims needed urgent rehabilitation to enable them to return to living normal lives.

Also, a rainstorm last weekend in Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State destroyed the assembly hall of Sacred Heart Primary School, along Lagos Street, said to have been built in 1903 by missionaries.

No life was lost as the storm occurred after school hours but the chairman of the local government, Mr. Andem Ekpo Bassey, who inspected some of the places hit by the rainstorm, regretted that this came a few days after the state Rural Development Agency visited the school ahead of the renovation of the hall along with other buildings in the school.