Flooding: NEMA DG directs operational directors to work with states

The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mrs Zubaida Umar, has directed zonal directors to strengthen synergy with the State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) to ensure that rescue equipment and facilities are available for immediate deployment in the event of flood in their areas of responsibilities. She gave the directive in Abuja […]

The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mrs Zubaida Umar, has directed zonal directors to strengthen synergy with the State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) to ensure that rescue equipment and facilities are available for immediate deployment in the event of flood in their areas of responsibilities.

She gave the directive in Abuja during a meeting with the management and operational directors of the agency on their activities so far.

She stressed the need for timely response to save lives and property, adding that rapid assessments must also be conducted of flood incidents to determine any further action to be taken towards supporting the affected persons.

The Director General, in a statement signed by the Head, Press Unit, Manzo Ezekiel, said the zonal directors should leverage existing partnerships with stakeholders, particularly the military to request support from their Disaster Response Units (DRUs) to deploy necessary resources and equipment for search and rescue operations.

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Umar also told the technical officers at the headquarters to brace up for possible deployment across the states to beef up response interventions to overwhelming flood incident sites.

Due to the increasing flooding incidents, Umar inaugurated the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at the headquarters in Abuja to monitor and coordinate the timely deployment of resources for search and rescue in support of the zonal and territorial offices nationwide.

She also activated the Situation Room at the NEMA headquarters in Abuja for flood data collection, processing and dissemination of authentic information from incident sites.