AT least, 13 family homes and properties, worth millions of naira, have been swallowed up in a gorge measuring about three hundred metres deep and 300m wide, in Amachalla village, Awka, the Anambra State capital.
The lawmaker representing Awka South 1 Constituency in the State Assembly, Engr Kenechukwu Chukwuemeka, who was invited to the location by residents, was short of words when he saw the extent of damage.
Chukwuemeka, who fought back tears while consoling wailing mothers, toddlers and youth, whose homes and belongings were swept away by torrential rains, urged for calm, assuring them that "something urgent is going to be done by the state government."
Chukwuemeka urged Governor Peter Obi, the State's Ministries of Environment, Special Duties, Senator Chris Ngige, the Federal Government and Representative Emeka Nwogbo to come to the aid of the residents. He urged them to pool efforts together through the instrumentality of their offices to resettle them and see how some of their homes and belongings could be salvaged.
"This is a terrible situation," he said. "From what I see, more than 12 more houses, Schools, Churches, farm lands, and cash crops would be swept away when the next rain comes. I don't think it is still safe for these families, whose houses have not fallen, to continue to sleep inside them. We must resettle them as well as those who have lost their homes and belongings already. I'm sure His Excellency, Governor Obi, would be happy to allow more families remain hear," Chukwuemeka noted.
According to some of the victims, including Mr. Samuel Offodile, Mrs. Florence Anagbogu, Emeka Chukwuma, Chief Okey Anagbogu, Nze John Nnatu, Kenechukwu Dimelu and Charles Offodile and other family heads, the menace started gradually few years ago. They said their complaints and distress calls to the Commissioner for Environment had yielded no fruit until it got to the present stage.
Samuel Offodile, whose newly-completed house sits near a compound being eaten up from two sides, told journalists, amid tears, that he had already sent his wife and children away to other relatives' home in.
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