Three persons got drowned in floods following last Friday’s heavy rains that hit Accra and its environs, which also disrupted businesses and caused destruction to properties running into millions of cedis.
The body of one of the deceased, a male who was swept away by the raging flood in Ashaiman has been found while the bodies of the two others who drowned at New Legon, near Adenta were still missing.
The Communications Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), George Ayisi, confirmed the tragedy to the Ghanaian Times in a telephone interview yesterday.
He said the New Legon victims were brothers and that one was trying to save the other who was struggling to swim out of the flood when both of them were carried away.
He said efforts by NADMO to retrieve the bodies were ongoing.
In the Ashaiman case, he said, the victim, who fell into the overflow of water was reportedly drunk as of the time the incident happened.
Mr Ayisi said the organisation was yet to assess the extent of damage caused by the long hours of downpour but confirmed that properties were destroyed on Friday.
He advised the public to be cautious of places they seek shelter during rains especially when the Ghana Meteorological Agency (G-Met) had announced that there would be more rains.
“Parents should monitor their children during the rains. They should not be allowed to play in flood waters as it was dangerous,” he said.
Friday’s torrential downpour and its attendant floods which started after 3:00 p.m. brought the brisk business and other activities in Accra to a standstill.
Motorists who were swift had to use alternative routes to avoid the vehicles being swept by the raging floods while those who were caught in the moment had their cars submerged.
Commuters were stranded at the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and Kaneshie as commercial drivers refused to move their vehicles for fear of being stuck in the gridlock. Some passengers walked to their destinations.
When the rains subsided, some commuters were compelled to pay twice or more the usual fare to get home, with some reported to have arrived at their destinations a few hours before midnight.
“I was soaked, stranded and desperate to get home. But there were no vehicles. The few ones too were charging extra,” Rose Asante told the Ghanaian Times.
Photos and videos shared on social media showed parts of the capital like Ashaiman, the Accra-Tema motorway area, Shiashie and Madina were severely flooded.
Affected residents who had lost properties were seen wadding through the flood, trying to salvage any property they could find after the downpour. The flood left huge piles of refuse at the affected communities.
The Ghana National Fire Service rescued stranded people at Kaneshie-Abbosey Okai who had been trapped by the flood coupled with debris left behind by ongoing construction works on the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange.
Earlier this month, the GMet cautioned that the distribution of this year’s September to November rainfall may lead to more localised floods in low lying areas within Accra and Kumasi.
BY ANITA NYARKO-YIRENKYI & JONATHAN DONKOR
