Flood kills six in Techiman Municipality

Perennial flooding killed six people in the Techiman Municipality from 2010 and 2013, Mr Jibreel Kesse Labib, the Techiman Municipal Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) said on Tuesday.

He attributed the flood to the poor drainage system, unplanned settlements as well as settlements around water bodies in the Municipality.

He expressed unhappiness that the problem had not been addressed, although the city authorities are aware of it.

Mr Labib made this known when Mr Bossman Owusu, a Communication Analyst at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Office in Accra paid a courtesy call on him in Techiman.

The analyst is on a three-day official visit to the Brong-Ahafo Region to acquaint himself with the activities and programmes of some public institutions being supported by the world body.

Mr Labib mentioned Twemia-Nkwanta, Ahenbronoso, Mesidan, Buoyem and Onyinase as the most affected communities of perennial flooding due to the bad drainage systems.

He said the Municipality is now a beneficiary of the NADMO Crew project being implemented by the UNDP in collaboration with the Norwegian government and Danish International Development Agency.

The main goal of the three-year project is to reduce disaster risks through better understanding hazard risks, reducing vulnerability to hazards and enhancing capacities for disaster risk reduction.

In order to achieve these goals, the project aims to develop hazard maps, enhance systems and coordination capacities for early warning, and implement disaster risk reduction projects in 10 pilot sites.

Mr Labib explained since the implementation of the project started in 2012, it has been beneficial to especially farmers in the Municipality due to the installation of the automatic weather censor and other machines at the work station.

He said the censor, cameras and computers installed at the works station automatically detected and enabled NADMO to alert people in the Municipality about the weather patterns and feed them with early warnings on disaster.

Mr Owusu called for an effective collaboration between NADMO, District Assemblies, National Commission for Civic Education and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in disaster management.