THE National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has warned communities living around the smoke-emitting Abadaguri rock at Ndenajam village to keep 500 metres away from rocky range.

Ndenajam village is in Funakaye Local Government Area of Gombe State.

Alhaji Aliyu Sambo, NEMA’s North East Zonal Coordinator, gave the warning in Gombe recently at the end of the inter-agencies’ committee meeting.

The meeting was called to review the environmental impact of the smoke from the rock in the past seven months. Sambo said the smoke had high poisonous sulphur dioxide content which was harmful  to human, animal and plants.

’’The smoke from the rock was monitored using air quality monitoring equipment. The exercise was carried out by Mr. Kingsley Nwogu, a chemist with NESREA,  on June 15, 2011.

“The gaseous emissions contain 1.8 per cent of sulphur dioxide (SO2), 4.2 per cent of carbon monooxide (CO), 0.03 per cent of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and 0.0 per cent of Ozone (O3),” he said.
He stressed the need for the government to allow scientists to carry out further scientific investigation into the rock and ensure periodic monitoring of the situation around the area.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the inter-agency review meeting was attended by experts from NEMA, Centre for Geodesy and Geodynamics, National Space Research and Development Agency in Toro, Bauchi State.
Also in attendance were officials from the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, National Geo-Hazard Monitoring Centre in Enugu and representatives from the Gombe State Ministries of Water Resources and Environment.

Officials from the Gombe State Emergency Management Agency, NESREA as well as the Nigerian Meteorological Agency also attended the meeting.