By Stanley Onyekwere
Barely two days after the deadly flooding that submerged no fewer than 116 houses along Abuja Airport Road, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has declared the Trademore Estate area a disaster zone, that needs immediate action to remedy further damages and loss of lives and properties.
Also, the FCTA says it is particularly looking at coming up with a swift programme of evacuating people from flood prone site, so as to ensure that they prevent further casualties, following incessant flooding incident in the area.
Making this declaration yesterday, Permanent Secretary, FCTA, Olusade Adesola, said the flooding incident at Trademore Estate was among the issues reviewed at the FCT Monthly Security Committee meeting, to consider the effort that needs to be put in place to mitigate property damage and casualty from flooding in FCT.
Adesola, who led senior FCTA officials and heads of security and paramilitary agencies domiciled in the FCT, on an assessment tour of the affected area, said they were amazed that only two days after the flood, people have returned to some of the properties.
He however added that the FCDA Executive Secretary, who chairs the Taskforce on Flood Mitigation in FCT, the CP and other officials of the FCTA particularly FEMA, Development Control, AEPB are now ready to go and evolve solutions that would immediately address the menace.
He said: “We just visited Trademore to see the developmental challenges occasioned by the nature of the drainage constructed against water across the roads in the area. We have seen the need to look into this urgently.
“We were quite amazed at the level of flooding that occurred there (Trademore Estate). More particularly is the risk that people took – to build in such a low level plain. While on the road, we saw that even the roof of the houses were bellow the road level, which makes them vulnerable to flooding.
“The taskforce will immediately swing to action to make recommendations on urgent issues or attention that must be given to the area. As we cannot fold our hands and allow the destruction to continue.
“We were amazed that only two days after the flood, people have returned to some of the properties. So, in a couple of days, we will be taking appropriate action. Having seen the extent of the flooding, we hereby declare the Trademore Estate area a disaster zone that needs immediate action to remedy further damages and lost of lives and properties.
“So, we will look at a programme of evacuating people from those areas, so as to ensure that we prevent the loss of lives and property.
“For the rest of the year, rain predictions show that there might still be more heavy rains, which means that there could be damages and casualty. And the FCTA will do everything possible within its power to ensure that we mitigate such occurrence.
He therefore urged residents to always exercise restraints in the places where they run to, so that they don’t run into where they would trapped.
