The Director-General of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), AVM Muhammadu Muhammed (rtd), has advised the Enugu State Government to quickly activate all contingency and emergency flood plans especially sensitisation and preparation of all stakeholders.
Muhammed gave the advice on Thursday when a national delegation of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), visited the Government House, Enugu.
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The Director General, who was represented by Mr James Eze, NEMA Team Leader of the Advocacy Visit, appealed to the state government to take proactive flood mitigation measures such as opening of drains and waterways/canals and begin a massive flood sensitisation in communities.
He further told the government to identify high grounds and appeal to its residents in lowland and flood plains to relocate to such places and open effective communication between it and NEMA.
He said: “There is a need to stock SEMA warehouses to enable swift reaction to supply food and non-food items to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) prior to NEMA and other stakeholders’ intervention.”
Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi said that the state government has already set up an emergency response plan to tackle or reduce any possible flooding within the state this rainy season.
He said highly probably flood risk council areas in the state included Enugu East, Udi, Nsukka, Enugu North, Enugu South and Oji-River , while the likely flood low risk council areas are: Igbo-Etiti, Ezeagu, Uzo-Uwani and Nkanu East.
Ugwuanyi said the state had received tremendous human and material support from NEMA in areas of capacity building, training and relief materials.
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