Flood kills 2 in Nyanya, sacks scores in Mararaba

A 32-year-old man and a 12-year-old boy have been killed by flood waters after a heavy downpour at Gbagalape, a suburb of Nyanya, Abuja, last Friday. Aso Chronicle gathered that scores of others were sacked from their homes around Kabayi in Mararaba. Witnesses said the deceased, Isaac Ihyom, a commercial cyclist had dropped off a […]

A 32-year-old man and a 12-year-old boy have been killed by flood waters after a heavy downpour at Gbagalape, a suburb of Nyanya, Abuja, last Friday.

Aso Chronicle gathered that scores of others were sacked from their homes around Kabayi in Mararaba.

Witnesses said the deceased, Isaac Ihyom, a commercial cyclist had dropped off a passenger near the stream, parked his bike by the river bank and took shelter under a shed when the motorcycle fell into the water.

“As the flood was sweeping away the man’s motorcycle, he jumped into the stream in an attempt to drag it out, but the flood swept both the bike and owner away.

“He was shouting for help but there was nothing anybody could do to help him. The tide of the flood was quite strong so everybody was afraid,” Usahfa Gbaagileh, a resident who knew the deceased said.

Another witness, Manasseh Akoso, said the boy was returning from the farm when the rain caught him and he stood helplessly at the stream’s bank.

“An unidentified man came and offered to help the boy cross to the other side but as they waded into the water, the tide washed them away and the man became desperate to save himself after abandoning the boy, who eventually drowned,” he said.

He alleged that the man ran away and it became difficult to understand what actually happened. 

Mr Henry Swende, who later led a rescue team to search for the flood victims, said the bike was recovered a day after the flood, downstream, while it took about two days of search to recover the corpses.

“We started searching at about 4:00p.m. when the rain was still drizzling up to 6:30p.m.that Friday. We searched from the bridge at Gbagalape up to Aso road in Maraba but we didn’t find any body.

“We resumed the search the next day and we went up to Ado Kasa and when we got tired we gave our phone numbers to people there and left. We were searching in groups, and one of the groups said they were told at Ado that residents saw two corpses but the police evacuated them,” he said.

Swende said it was on Sunday, at about 3:30p.m. that they received a call from Ado Kasa that a corpse had been seen.

“We went there and discovered that it was the body of Ihyom,” he said, adding that the corpse was handed over to the father, who took it to Benue State for burial.

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents living near the river bank in Mararaba were rendered homeless while property valued at millions of naira were destroyed by the flood.

Our reporter spotted many of the victims tidying up their recovered items at the weekend.

A resident of Gbagalape, Mr Boniface Sambo, said he lost farm produce worth N200, 000, adding that a farmer in the community lost fish worth N1 million.

“With what has happened, it will be difficult to plant near the river again. We will have to look for an alternative, otherwise, we will not plant this year again,” he said.

Chief of Gbagalape, Mr Kenneth Chindo Rabo, has appealed to the FCT Administration to complete the road project so that the residents can have a bridge over the stream.

He said more than 10 farms were destroyed by the torrential rain that Friday, adding that yam, maize and cassava plants were uprooted by the flood on the farms.

He, however, said no house was destroyed, though homes were flooded and property destroyed. 

The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) has since warned people living near river banks and flood prone areas to relocate in order to avoid loss of lives and property to the predicted heavy flooding in many states of the country this year.