Rainstorm hits Wa, rips off roofs of school buildings

Wa, May 8, GNA - A severe rainstorm hit the Wa municipality on Friday night, destroying properties and ripping off roofs of school buildings. Alhaji Issahaque Salia, Upper West Regional Minister and Mr Yakubu Duogoh, Wa Municipal Chief Executive, later toured the affected areas and schools destroyed by the storm to assess the extent of damage.

Alhaji Salia expressed disappointment that the schools facilities were destroyed in the storm and said even though painful, nobody could fight nature.


He said it was a blow to government, as it has to source funds to complete its rehabilitation on time, in order not to disrupt the academic calendar.


Mr Duogoh later visited the Nyagli Community, where its Junior High School had its entire roof ripped off while part of the primary school was also destroyed.


Some private buildings were also affected. The Wa Municipal Chief Executive advised the community members to provide temporary structure for the students to start classes while efforts were made to provide a permanent school block for them.


He said he would ensure that electricity is restored at the Wa Technical Institute as soon as possible to enable the authorities to go on with their academic work.


The National Service Personnel transit quarters, popularly called the 'Shrine' was hit by a kapok tree, which used to serve as a wind break.

The kapok tree was uprooted by the storm and some of its branches fell on the roof top of one of the quarters, which housed four of the 13 national service personnel, who were watching a movie in the room.


The shrine, which is built with stones and situated on the compound of the Wa Model Primary School, could not withstand the might of the branches and caved in on the personnel, injuring one Mr Blege, who is on admission at the Wa Regional Hospital.


Mr Affram Asare, one of the escapees said Mr Blege sustained slight cuts on his neck and feet and there was no cause for alarm. Two classroom blocks of the Wa Model Primary School had parts of its roof ripped off; whiles an ongoing dormitory block project of the Wa Senior High/Technical School also had its roof blown off. At the Wa Technical Institute, a GHC 220,000 six- unit classroom block, provided for students under the four years programme was damaged.


The facility, which formed part of the government's emergency classrooms project for the Institute, had its entire roof ripped off. Mr Mohammed Gariba Headmaster of the Institute said high tension electricity poles were also destroyed, with electricity cables lying in the open, causing a blackout in the school.


"With this calamity on our hands, we cannot find a place for the first year students, and also the Students would be writing their English paper on Monday, without lights in the classrooms and dormitories", Mr Gariba lamented.


He appealed to the Wa Municipal Assembly, the National Disaster Management Organisation and non-governmental organisations to come to the aid of the school.