Devastated by flood, Abuja residents cry out
By Emmanuel Elebeke
Residents of Trademore Estate, Lugbe, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja are still counting their losses after they were held hostage for hours by a rampaging flood that over ran the estate recently. The flood, occasioned by a heavy downpour in Abuja, covered over 60 houses. Also affected was a Catholic Church still under construction, which was pulled down by the heavy flood.
The flood, which started at about 5:30 am kept all the residents indoors till around 8:30 am before they could move out of the estate.
*Flooded community
Some of the victims, who spoke to Vanguard Metro, VM, lamented their losses of early morning flights, job interviews and other important engagements and called on the Federal Government to come to their aid.
A senior engineer with the estate’s management office, Mr. Emeka Ugwueze, blamed the flood on heavy down pour in Abuja city, which he said was the primary source of the flood. He said the flood from the main city was so heavy that it had gone beyond the capacity of the estate owner, and therefore requires the Federal Government’s intervention.
According to him, the management of the estate had done much in the past to bring such devastation under control, but for the fact that the flood came from the main city required the attention of a high profile contractor like Julius Berger to bring the situation under permanent control.
“The flood is not from rain fall within this estate but from the one that fell in the town, and if anything must be done to check it, I think it is the Federal Government that will do that because no small contractor can handle this high magnitude of flood unless a bigger contractor like Berger is brought here by the Federal Government. This is already beyond the owner of the estate, who I know had done a lot to avoid this kind of incident.
“The people here are Nigerians and they deserve government sympathy by way of bringing a permanent end to this frequent devastation through an intervention measure.”
The extensive damage the flood caused was the second since a similar incident occurred in May this year, during which lesser residential houses were affected. It was after this that the management cleared the drains and took strict measures within the estate to avoid future occurrence.
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