Rainstorm destroys buildings, electricity poles at Aflao

Aflao, Jan. 9, GNA - A rainstorm accompanied by strong winds on Friday dawn, swept through Aflao and its environs destroying several buildings and uprooted a number of trees and electricity poles.

Roofs of all the 14 classrooms of the local Roman Catholic A and B, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Amalgamated Junior Secondary Schools were blown off and deposited about 200 metres away. Teaching aids, books and some furniture in the offices and classrooms were also damaged.

When the Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited the school on Friday morning, teachers and pupils who had reported for school were stranded. Four big trees on the school campus were uprooted while others had their braches broken.

Mr Cosmos Simon and Mr Peter Atisu, Headmasters of the two schools who conducted the GNA around, appealed to the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), the Ketu District Assembly and Philanthropists to come to the aid of the schools.

They said the magnitude of the damage might continue to affect teaching and learning for sometime.

In other parts of the town some coconut trees and plantain suckers were either uprooted or broken by the storm, which lasted one hour.

Police personnel were directing traffic at a spot on the main Aflao road where an articulated truck was trapped by a falling electricity pole and had blocked the flow of traffic.

Sheds of the Ghana Timber Marking Board Warehouse at Gbedekope, a suburb of Aflao have been completely flattened while the Dzigbodi Market at Avoeme, a suburb of Aflao was flooded.

Other property affected by the storm was at the Low Cost housing area, Zongo and the Saint Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile, Mr Linus Koffie, Ketu District Chief Executive (DCE) who had inspected the affected areas, put the estimated cost of damage to property at about one billion cedis, saying, the disaster was unprecedented in the history of the area.

He said the District Assembly had sent a distress message to the regional and national offices of NADMO for immediate help and counselled property owners to ensure that construction works were done properly to withstand such occurrences and plant trees to serve as wind breaks. He said the Assembly would take steps to enable schoolwork to continue while efforts were made to remedy the situation at various schools affected by the storm.