Three dead in Abuja flood(Updated)

Another tragedy struck on Thursday in Abuja, following early morning downpour, as a family of three in one of the elite estates located at Lokogoma District of the nation’s capital lost three members to the unfortunate incidence.

One of the deceased, identified as Kenneth was said to be a resident of IPENT 5 Estate in Lokogoma. He was allegedly taking his two children to a summer lesson around 7am in their Honda SUV Jeep when he ran into the flash flood at Pengassan Estate, Phase 2 junction, which over flooded the car, killing all the three occupants.

This tragedy is coming barely 30 days after the flood that claimed another family of three at Dei-Dei area of Abuja.

When Ripples Nigeria visited the scene of the flood tragedy, some neighbours and sympathisers of the deceased family who were still around, said the man and his children met their untimely death because the man resisted a warning by some people who saw the force of the flood and advised him to wait till the water subsides.

Addressing newsmen, the Director General of FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Idris Abbas stated that his team got to the place late when some residents had already retrieved the bodies of the man and his two children.

“My team got to the place late when the dead bodies of the man and his children had been rescued by some locals. We could not carry out further assessment of the situation because of the angry mob on the scene.

“We also gathered that the dead bodies had been deposited at the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi,” Abbass said.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of Pengassan Estate, one of the adjourning estates in the area, who was also part of the rescue team, Mr. Imoudu Okpogha, said that flooding is a nightmare that residents of all the estates in Lokogoma have continued to grapple with.

Okpogha told newsmen that flooding menace has made life unbearable to the residents of Lokogoma estates.

According to him, the various residents associations have cried out to the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCDA) to provide basic infrastructure within the area, but their cries never received any attention.

“We call on the FCT Minister to come to our aid. In this place once it begins to rain, we don’t go out of the area and if we are outside we can’t come in, our children cannot go to school because of the raging flood, coupled with the bad road.

“During the last Ramadan, some of the residents were forced to braek their fast on the road because there was a heavy flood that lasted for hours and prevented people from getting to their homes.

“As you can see, we don’t have roads to the many estates in this Lokogoma, and this is how we suffer each time the rainy season begins,” Okpogha said.

 

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