Flood kills father, two children in Lokogoma

A man and his two children lost their lives yesterday in a flesh flood occasioned by early morning downpour, in the Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The tragic incident happened between 7 and 9 am in Lokogoma housing area of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), in the nation’s capital.
It was gathered that corpse of the man, simply identified as Kenneth, alongside those of his daughter and son (aged 15 and 11years) were found trapped inside a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) in the middle of a stream in the area.
It was also learnt that late Kenneth was conveying his two children in a white Honda SUV, to a school for summer lesson when they ran into a flash flood at Pengassan Estate, Phase 2 junction.
According to eyewitness accounts, some locals retrieved the victims, who were said to be residents of IPENT 5 Estate in Lokogoma.
At the scene of the tragedy, some neighbours and sympathisers of the deceased family, the man and his children met their untimely death because he failed to heed to a warning by some commuters, due to the force of the flood, and advised him to wait till the water subsides.
Briefing newsmen on the development, the Director General of FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Idriss Abbas disclosed that rescue officials got to the place when some residents had already rescued the bodies of the victims.
“My team got to the place late 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, Mr. Imoudu Okpogha, said that lamented the frequency of flash floods in the area, saying it’s a nightmare that residents have continued to grapple with.
Okpogha stressed that flooding menace has made life unbearable to the residents of estates in Lokogoma.
This, he said persists despite cries by the various residents’ associations to the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority (FCDA) to provide basic infrastructure within the area.
“ 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”, he stated.

from peoples daily