Widespread floods hit Sunyani and its environs

The Sunyani Municipality was on  Friday night hit by a torrential rain that flooded some parts of area and cut off a number of cocoa growing communities from the municipality.

The affected communities are Subonpam, Asamoah shell, Agyapongkrom, Agya Yanti, Alhaji Akuraa, Asuogya, Besiese, Adidease among others.

The roads linking the communities to Atuahenekrom, the only nearby marketing centre, had become impassable whilst quantities of cocoa beans and other food stuffs had stuck in farms.

River Amoma, the main river in the area, overflowed its banks and farmers as well as school children could not move in or out of some of the communities.

Mr. Kwasi Oppong-Ababio, Municipal Chief Executive, Mr. Kwasi Lampo Municipal Coordinator of National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and Mr. James Nunoo, Municipal Engineer, visited some of the communities on Wednesday to assess the situation.

At Subonpam, residents told the Ghana News Agency that a 16- year-old Junior High School pupil nearly got drowned in the river when he attempted to cross it to attend school at Atuahenekrom on Tuesday.

Mr. Oppong-Ababio told the flood victims to exercise restraint whilst the assembly and the NADMO arranged some relief items for them.

He assured the people that the municipal assembly would liaise with the Department of Feeder Roads to re-gravel the Adidease-Atuahenekrom road to facilitate movement of the farmers and their economic activities.

Mr. Lampo told GNA that some communities including Atronie, Kotokrom, Baakoniaba and Yawsen in the municipality were also flooded.

At Adidease, Mr. Kwakye Mensah, a farmer told the GNA that floodwaters had submerged all the wooden bridges over River Amoma in the area.

“We can neither go to our farms to fetch food stuffs nor to the market to buy food items”, he said, and appealed to rebuild the bridges.

Madam Adwoa Pokuaa, a cocoa farmer, expressed the fear that if immediate steps were not taken their houses would be flooded and appealed to the municipal assembly to build gutters along the road that links the community to Atuahenekrom.

Source: GNA