Anambra State Emergency Management Agency has warned riverine communities in the state to heed early warning of the 2020 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP), recently released by the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency, NIHSA, and its counterpart, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NiMET, ahead of the 2020 impending flooding.
The Executive Secretary of SEMA, Chief Paul Odenigbo, gave the warning in a statement made available to newsmen, on Tuesday, in Awka.
Chief Odenigbo, pointed out that the 2020 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP), released by the Agencies this year, shows that rainy season is likely to commence earlier than expected.
Both agencies said that rainfall would start before the end of February in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria and sometimes in June in the Northern part of the country.
The report also shows that the cessation dates of the rains would be December and September in Southern and Northern Nigeria respectively.
He explained that what this means is that this year’s rainy season would last longer than that of 2019.
He added that NIHSA and NiMET also predicted that the wet season would come with thunderstorms and very heavy downpour that would lead to tremendous rise in water level of rivers and streams as well as creeks in coastal and riverine areas of the country.
The two agencies equally predicted that the 2020 rainfall would be heavier than that of last year, and that there would be flash floods in many cities, townships and their suburbs in different parts of Nigeria.
To this end, the SEMA boss said the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, in collaboration with its federal counterpart, NEMA and other relevant groups such as the Red Cross and Civil Society Organizations and the Ministry of Health, have taken steps to mitigate adverse effects of the imminent flooding.
Apart from engaging in serious media campaigns such as the one SEMA in conjunction with other relevant agencies embarked on second round of early warning visits to flood proned local government areas to enlighten and sensitise stakeholders of the communities on the impending heavy downpour and its consequential flooding.
He listed the flood inclined local government areas of the state are to include Ogbaru, Anambra East and West, Ayamelum, Onitsha North and South, Ihiala, Ekwusigo, Awka North and Idemili South.
According to him, even as people pray for divine intervention to avert the approaching danger, residents of these areas living near the rivers and streams should not hesitate to relocate to higher ground as soon as they notice significant rise in the water levels of their domicile.
Chief Odenigbo also cautioned Nigerians living in highly populated urban centers to stop the attitude of disposing wastes in drainage channels, while developers should also desist from building physical structure across natural water ways thus blocking them unnecessarily for selfish reasons.
He urged Nigerians to pray that the Cameroonian authorities would not be compelled by unsavoury circumstances to release excess water from Lake Nyos, in their country, as they did in 2012, which resulted in unprecedented flood disaster that year in Nigeria.
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