FLOODS are among the most frequent and costly natural disasters in terms of their devastating effects on the lives of victims and human settlements.
Inadequate educational campaigns on flood preparation and inability to predict floods are one of the major challenges some countries worldwide face.
It is on record that an estimated 1.6 million deaths for instance occurred globally within one year due to the failure of affected countries to address effectively such challenges. An Internet search on floods using Wikipedia also reveal that the deadliest floods in the world, with death tolls ranging between 100,000 and 3.7 million occurred in China in 1887, 1911, 1931, 1938 and 1975.
As far back as 1530 The Netherlands recorded one of the deadliest floods while North Vietnam also had her share of the disaster in 1971.
As a result of Typhoon Nina and the subsequent Banqiao Dam failure, approximately 86,000 people died from flooding and another 145,000 died later from various forms of diseases in China in 1975.
Dozens of villages were equally inundated when rain pushed the rivers of northwestern Bangladesh over their banks in early October 2005.
What is a flood?
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows, with the result that some of the water escapes its normal boundaries.
While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation, it is not a significant flood unless such escapes of water endangers land areas used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area.
Undoubtedly, flood damage can be virtually eliminated by moving away from rivers and other water bodies. Times without number, people have lived and worked along some water bodies for economic gains.
Types of floods include riverine, estuarine, coastal, catastrophic and muddy floods.
A slow kind of riverine flood occurs when there is runoff from sustained rainfall or rapid snow melt exceeding the capacity of a river’s channel. Causes of this situation include heavy rains from monsoons, hurricanes and tropical depressions.
The primary effect of floods include casualties as some people and livestock die due to drowning.
The secondary effect includes contamination of water resulting in cholera outbreak and related water borne diseases. Food shortage due to loss of entire harvest is equally experienced in some communities. The tertiary effects are economic hardship, rebuilding costs, price increases in food stuff among others.
Northern Region
Experience in 2007
The destructive effect of floods on human settlements and economic activities in the Northern Region between August and September 2007 is still fresh on the minds of many residents of the region.
Figures recorded by the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) in the region show that 20 people died in the floods that hit the region between August and September in 2007.
Additionally, 22 health facilities, 18 school structures and 1,499.7 kilometres of roads were destroyed in the same year. Two hundred and twenty-four thousand two hundred and twenty-six people were displaced while 9,707 houses were destroyed by the floods in the region. Eighty-two thousand seven hundred and thirty acres of farmland were washed away by the floods, including food crops and livestock that resulted in approximately 243,378 metric tonnes of projected shortfall in food production. These happenings would certainly never be forgotten considering the level of destruction that occurred.
It is also worthy to mention that 19 deaths reportedly occurred during a cholera outbreak in August 2007 as a result of the floods in the region and a total of 157 cases of the disease were recorded during the same period.
Following that sad occurrence, a 13-member Cholera Epidemic Committee was set up to help monitor the situation rigidly and by the close of August 2007, only two persons were said to be on admission at the Tamale West Hospital as the incidence reduced from 12 per cent to 10 per cent.
In September 2007, the water intake point at Nawuni in the Tolon Kumbungu district recorded as high as 34.70 feet in water level, the highest ever registered in recent times according to Engineers of the Ghana Water Company Limited. As a result of the floods sand bags were put around the pumping machine to prevent water from entering certain vital components of the machine.
An assessment of the impact of the floods on various sectors in the three northern regions by NADMO and other stakeholders indicated that an estimated 98.25 million Ghana cedis was needed urgently to help reconstruct facilities in the regions.
Out of that amount, Northern Region alone required about 51.27 million Ghana cedis to put the necessary infrastructure in place. Reconstruction efforts were needed in such sectors as education, roads, water, sanitation and hygiene, provision of shelters, and sustainable livelihood programmes.
Interventions
Heartwarmingly, interventions came from both donor agencies and organisations within the country. The World Bank for instance pledged to provide $10 million to rebuild sectors like nutrition and malaria control, education, agriculture, economic growth, private sector development and roads.
During the initial stages of the floods, the German government provided one million Euros as an emergency relief package for flood victims and later made available 900 thousand Euros as a follow-up emergency aid to rehabilitate bridges, and dams in the Northern Region.
United Nations agencies like the World Food Programme(WFP),UN Children Education Fund(UNICEF),UN Fund for Population Activities(UNFPA),UN Development Programme(UNDP) and Department for International Development(DFID) were among those agencies that contributed their quota to bringing relief to disaster victims.
The distribution of relief items to victims encountered some challenges as some district chief executives in the region allegedly claimed they did not have the needed resources to make the exercise successful. Subsequently, the Northern Regional Minister at that time, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, gave a one week ultimatum to the various DCEs to distribute the items, no matter the problems they encountered. Eventually the distribution process started and some victims heaved s of relief.
Why it occurred?
Statistics from the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMA) in the Northern Region indicate that rainfall figures were higher in 2008 than in 2007. However, the negative impact of the floods in the region was felt more in 2007 than in 2008.
A critical look at the effects of the floods in 2007 shows that there was inadequate preparation and intensive public educational campaigns hence the devastating effects of the floods on victims. It must be noted that the major cause of the floods was attributed mainly to torrential rains. However some analysts of the 2007 flood including meteorologists acknowledge that adequate preparation and increased public awareness could have possibly averted such occurrence.
Statistics by the GMA indicate that in 2007, rainfall figures recorded did not exceed 300 millimetres for any given month or station in the region while in 2008 it went beyond the figure. In August 2008 for instance, the GMA recorded 334.6 millimetres as the highest for Tamale Metropolis. However, In September 2007, the GMA recorded 278.9 millimetres as the highest rainfall figure for Tamale yet the disruptive effects of the floods was experienced more in 2007. Why?
The Northern Regional Meteorologist, Mr Dominic Pokperlaar, explained that the level of awareness on preparation against floods was higher in 2008 than in 2007 hence the destructive effects of torrential rains leading to floods was minimal in the former than the latter.
Forecasts for the main rainy season between July and September 2009 in the northern part of the country, according to the meteorologist, suggest that there is 45 per cent probability of experiencing normal rainfall while the probability for getting above normal rainfall is projected to be 40 per cent. The probability of experiencing below normal rainfall is 15 per cent.
How prepared is the
Northern Region this year?
The Regional Co-ordinator of NADMO, Alhaji Alhassan Mahamoud, intimated that a number of activities including educational campaigns on the need for farmers to cultivate their crops early and harvest them before July this year, for instance were being carried out by stakeholders.
Additionally, a stakeholders meeting will be held in due course to brainstorm on how best to manage floods to avert their recurrence this year. This is refreshing and it must be sustained because never again should the region relapse into that era where families lost their relatives and farm produce through floods.
Indeed, in 2008, the NADMO and other stakeholders set up committees whose members went round the various disaster-prone areas in the region to educate people that eventually led to the minimal destruction of property during the rainy season.
It is expected that such efforts would be improved and sustained this year and in the future.
Some suggestions have been put forward by the NADMO Coordinator. These include the need for people to consider the option of moving upland instead of living along river banks. Another option is that the region must consider seriously rainwater harvesting which is critical for flood control and to boost crop production. Unfortunately, some people consider the former suggestion not to be feasible considering some beliefs they have that whenever they attempted to relocate misfortunes like deaths befell them.
It is, therefore, necessary for consistent and intense public education to help change the mindset of those who have such beliefs to forestall future disasters. Political will is equally needed in that direction.
The region’s reconstruction effort is ongoing and there are indications that most of the road projects including the construction of broken down culverts would be completed in due course. However, the Regional Economic Planning Officer, Mr Gregory Addah, intimated that some contractors are behind schedule and that a meeting is being organised to impress upon the contractors to speed up work on roads and culverts destroyed by the floods in 2007.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the region has also intensified its educational campaigns in communities, particularly flood-prone areas with the formation of District Environmental Management Committees (DEMCs).
According to the Regional Director of the EPA, Mr Abu Iddrisu, the sensitisation programme of his outfit had been strengthened this year to avoid a recurrence of the disaster in the region. Additionally, communities are being supported with seedlings to embark on afforestation programmes under the EPA’s Natural Resources Management Programme.
Experiences from other countries
Lessons from many countries across the world show that rivers prone to floods are often carefully managed. Defences such as levees, bunds, reservoirs and weirs are used to prevent rivers from bursting their banks. When these defences fail, emergency measures such as sandbags or portable inflatable tubes are used. Reducing the rate of deforestation should improve the incidence and severity of floods.
In Egypt for instance the establishment of both the Aswan High Dam in 1976 and the Aswan Dam in 1902 has controlled various amounts of flooding along the Nile River.
No comments:
Post a Comment