By Mohammed Lawal Shuaibu & Abdullahi M. Gulloma

A small stream flowing through Gwagwalada broke its banks after hours of heavy rain. The water submerged houses and left 60 families homeless.

People trapped in their homes were heard screaming for help as the water rose. Rescuers broke windows to rescue women and children.
Witnesses saw water tanks, refrigerators, television sets, gates and other building materials floating down-stream.

The worst affected buil-dings in the suburb were illegally built and closest to the stream. Some are made of concrete, but others are made of wood and zinc.

Kubwa was also flooded for the second time in less than a month.
At the beginning of the month, Kubwa suffered a devastating flood with waters washing homes away without warning in the early hours of the day.

The FCDA said it would demolish the buildings damaged by the flood in Kubwa.

Water also destroyed part of the main road into Abuja yesterday causing traffic chaos trapping motorists for hours.
The sudden burst of fast flowing water ripped away a section of the Gagwalada -Lokoja road.

The Federal Road Safety Commission described the road as a “death trap”, but no one was injured during the flood.

A witness said the flood caused traffic hold up on the road. He said: “Motorists were forced to park on the sides of the road and waited for almost three hours for the flood to subside as it had washed the road at the village. It was about 4.30pm that vehicles were able to move”.

An FRSC spokesman said the culvert was not big enough to carry the road across the river.

He said: “Our major problem now is that we do not know the extent to which the flood has damaged the culvert underneath and that the road has a crack across.

The FRSC also maintained that apart from the culvert underneath being small to carry the road, the trench dug by the side of the road by contractors burying their communication cables also aided the flood to damage the culvert and the road.

“As it is now, this part of the road is dangerous and that is why we are here with police to ensure make-shift signals for motorists”, he said.

Though the flood did not cause any casualty, the dangerous nature of the road coupled with this development could cause death to motorists who ply the road in no time if nothing is urgently done to arrest the situation, he said.

The heavy downpour yesterday also disrupted commercial activities in most areas across the Federal Capital Territory and flooded parts of Nyanya and Karu in the outskirts of Abuja.

The rain which started in the early hours of yesterday, seriously affected businesses, especially that of commercial motorcyclists popularly known as Okada riders.

Okadaman, Nafiu Yusuf, told Daily Trust yesterday he was only able to pick two passengers and that the heavy rain would affect his daily returns of N700 to the owner of the motorcycle.

Another okada rider, Moses Bako, said passengers were not patronising motorcycles because of the heavy rain. This, he said, “has been hitting us bad.”

The rain also affected areas like Nyanya and Karu. Mostly affected were areas around Zenith Bank, LEA Primary School, Mammy market, Nyanya market and the road leading to the city centre.

As at 9 a.m., customers could not access Zenith Bank as its three security men could not reach the gate to open it for them. The building materials market in the area was washed away by the flood.
Motorists who went to a nearby AP petrol station to buy fuel were similarly trapped in the station as the flood completely took over the road leading to the station.

At the LEA Primary School, buildings were half submerged as the entire school compound was overtaken by the flood.

On the major road leading to the town, motorists could not have easy passage as part of the road was taken over by refuse washed “ashore” by the flood.

Commuters also had their share of the bad experience as the commercial drivers exploited the situation to arbitrarily increase their fares by 30 per cent.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, a trader, Madam Grace Enwulem, who brings fruits from Akwanga to sell at Karu market, said that she lost some of her wares to the flood because the vehicle she boarded broke down in the flood. She said that she abandoned the vehicle and her goods to seek shelter elsewhere.

A motorist, Mr. Raphel Akingba, blamed the flood on the drainage system in the area and people’s habit of dropping refuse in the channel.

He advised local authorities to put in place a proper refuse disposal mechanism.

A trader at the building materials market who preferred anonymity, said the flood has become a common phenomenon anytime it rains in the area.