Flood sacks Benue citizens, as properties worth millions destroyed 

From Attah Ede, Makurdi 

Many residential buildings in Makurdi metropolis were on Monday destroyed by flood as a result of over three hours of heavy rainfall.

The rain which started at about 6:57am and lasted till  10:03am on Monday, has rendered several persons homeless and destroyed so many properties worth millions of Naira.

The most affected areas are behind  Living faith church Naka road, Idye village, Achusa, Nyiman, Katugu NorthBank, parts of Wadata and Wurukum, all in Makurdi town.

Many houses including hotels, school, worship centers and mini market places were submerged.

A residence of behind living faith church Naka road, Mrs. Blessing  Attah told our correspondent that the surging water prevented from taken her three children to school.

According to her, ‘ the rain began few minutes  to 7am  this morning. By then the children are in the bathroom taking their and am almost done in preparing their food.

“Only for me to come out of the room to discover that the cloud had changed. Before the children could take their breakfast, the rain started in full force.

“ I peeped  outside  our gate only to behold the whole compound already flooded and water was flowing into the living room”.

“We waited for some time, thinking it would stop, but no way. Everywhere were flooded including our compound and our road connecting the main road.

“We tried to evacuate some perishable items like electronics into one of the rooms until the rain subsided around 10 am. You can see that the water is gradually receding from the living room”, Attah said.

It was a similar experience for Mr Agbo Okpokwu within Achusa, the family of five live in a house being threatened by flood, as at the time our correspondent visited the area, some of their property had been evacuated outside.

“You can see out property outside because the rooms are already flooded we will remain like this until the water recedes.”, he said 

A staff of Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, Mr. Ate Job who spoke to our correspondent at Katugu one of the affected areas in North Bank called on the state government to open up drainage in the flooded areas.

He said that some of the flooded areas from uniagric road to court 5 and Katugu were mostly affected because of lack of drainage, adding that the flood had chop off all roads thereby making the inhabitable and impassible.

The State Commissioner for Water Resources, Environment and Climate Change,  Mr. Odoh Ugwu  could not be reached for comment as he could not answer calls or respond to text messages sent to his cell phone.