Rain Disaster Victims Identified (Front Page)

THE seven people (five males and two females) who lost their lives in last Friday’s floods that occurred in the western part of Accra have been identified.
They include 80-year-old Victor Amukwei Tetteh from James Town (Kweikuma Tsoshishi) and 36-year-old Pastor Isaac Oppong-Kusi of the Faith and Word Ministry at Kasoa who hails from Bekwai in the Ashanti Region.
The rest are 30-year-old Biney Walleh from the Central Region; 67-year-old Mary Essiem from Cape Coast (Coca-Cola Estate), 28-year-old Edjah Benyah from Elmina (Takoradi Bu) and Janet Ekum, four.
The seventh person, a Togolese male, was said to have visited the country a few days earlier.
They all got drowned in and around Kaneshie during the heavy downpour which lasted a little over two hours. None of the victims was pregnant, as had been speculated.
Four of the dead were said to be on board a 207 Benz bus travelling from Kasoa to Accra when they were caught in the floods at Kaneshie.
According to W.O. Gilbert Aniakwah of the Army Headquarters and brother-in-law of the late Pastor Oppong-Kusi, his brother-in-law, who was in the Benz bus, was in the company of a colleague pastor to an all-night church service in Accra when he met his death.
W.O. Aniakwah said the surviving pastor friend of his deceased brother-in-law told him that when it started raining heavily, it became difficult for the driver to see his way clear and that it was the deceased pastor who directed the driver as he drove through the floods.
He said while moving towards the Obetsebi-Lamptey Circle, a large volume of water entered the bus and filled it to the brim, and that as the passengers tried to flee the vehicle, those who could not swim got drowned.
The army officer, who looked worried, said the dead pastor was like a son to him because he cared for him when he was about nine till he left some few years ago after he had been ordained a pastor.
“I advised him to find himself a wife and he found himself a woman whom he was preparing to marry soon,” he said.
In an interview, the Greater Accra Regional Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Winfred N. Tesia, said the organisation was having discussions with the various bereaved families on how best it could help in the burial of the deceased.
In a related development, Accra experienced another rainfall in the early hours of yesterday.
Although it was not as intense as the one experienced last Friday night, areas around Darkuman Junction, Atico, Bubuashie Police Quarters, Achimota Mile Seven, Sakaman and parts of Odorkor got flooded.
For fear of another disaster, many residents stayed at home as it rained between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., a situation that made many of the roads of the city empty of their usual heavy traffic.
A team of NADMO officials, led by the National Co-ordinator, Mr Kofi Portuphy, visited the flooded areas once again to assess the situation.
Mr Portuphy took the opportunity to appeal to those living in low lying areas to relocate to higher ground or risk losing their lives.