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CLOUDY WITH RISK OF CASUALTIES

Aug 21 , 2021

CLOUDY WITH RISK OF CASUALTIES

An excavator digs out mud from a school building after heavy flooding has mostly destroyed it. The structure was not the only casualty of a rainy season characterised by fog, harshly cold weather and heavy showers. In the wrong place and at the wrong time in the Mekane Eyesus Seminary School compound on Tuesday, August 17, 2021, were five blocks of houses in the direct line of fire of overflooding from the nearby Tinishu Aqaqi River. Neither were electric pumps to suck floodwater out nor a retaining wall built at the cost of 70 million Br a match for it. By the time the rain subsided, the lives of eight people had been lost, including an entire family of five, and Sofia Essey, a 10-year student.

The area on Gunea Bissau St. is not new to floods, given the river there. But the combination of heavier than usual rain, poor drainage and a retaining wall that limits how fast the overflowing flood could subside have been singled out for the tragedy – small consolation for the friends and relatives of the deceased. The damage done is an addition to a million people affected by flooding across the country, according to the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, with a third of them displaced.

The impact of this flooding is believed to be manageable by beefing up early warning systems and fixing drainage challenges. The latter is especially applicable to the capital, which is crisscrossed by rivers. While ongoing construction projects across the city replace the upper surface with either concrete or asphalt, which are not as absorbent as mud, dense living conditions push people to build houses close to river banks. Decades of deforestation to make way for urban sprawl and soil saturation due to months of rain have not helped either.

The best defence against this natural disaster is nature itself, experts say. According to the UN-Habitat, the absence of green spaces may be responsible for up to 40pc of flooding and landslides. Until greening efforts advance far enough, the City Administration will continue shelling out money in emergency assistance for a tragedy such as the Mekane Eyesus school.

You can read the full story here

PUBLISHED ON Aug 21,2021 [ VOL 22 , NO 1112]

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