Steemit Engagement Challenge S5-W2: Natural Disaster In My Place

Greetings to you, my esteemed steemians. I am excited to have you here. I trust you are doing well. Today I am here to talk about natural disasters in my country in accordance to the contest that is organized in Steem For Betterlife Community.

In Nigeria, for the past few months, we have been receiving different reports about the occurrences of natural disasters in some states, where numerous roads, significant tracts of farmland, and thousands of houses have been damaged or destroyed by flood. In the place where I am staying, there was a flood that occurred in two villages that I have talked about.

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Areas Affected by Ruin and People Affected

Farmers, residents, and business owners in my place have continued to incur losses as a result of the natural disaster as water continued to wreak havoc on residents, drivers, and passengers in Ebonyi State as well as other states like Anambra State, Lokoja, which is in Kogi State, etc.

Numerous communities on the banks of the rivers Niger and Benue have suffered greatly as a result of the terrible tragedies that are caused by natural disasters.

Two villages in Ebonyi state, where I am staying, have significant portions of their land under water at the moment, which happened just last week.

Flood in affected Community

Ezzi and Ikwo villages are the villages that were flooded with water. Local residents in the villages have lost their crops, homes, means of subsistence, and even lives due to the floods.

Ezzi Community

In Ezzi, local government houses were almost submerged, while residents in the affected area of the village fled, taking refuge in school facilities in the upland areas of their different communities. Indeed, the flood caused a lot of damage in the affected community in my place.

Ezza Community

Thank God no lives were lost last Friday in Ikwo. Two boats got into an accident on the same day in Ikwo.

One of the boats was carrying 8 passengers when it capsized, whereas the other boat, which also capsized, was as a result of the havoc at the time the flood became too serious.

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The most probably cause of the flood

Well, natural disasters are unforeseen circumstances that no one knows when they will happen until they have happened. The widespread flooding was caused by heavy rainfall and the release of water from the river, along which the two villages shared boundaries.

According to some people in the two neighboring villages, the flood was caused by the inability of the government to ensure that the bridge below had been fixed.

The cause of the flood might likely be the bridge because the water became too heavy for the bridge and, as you can see from the images above, the water stopped flowing to the other side of the bridge when it was seriously rainy.

The villages called for the rehabilitation of the bridges and roads that link the areas. Most of the villages said that by fixing the road earlier could have prevented such occurrences from happening and could cause problems in the future as people could begin to use the road freely instead of water, most especially during this flood.

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Government Intervention:

At the time the incident happened, no one was able to be there at the time, aside from the villages. However, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Disaster Response Unit (DRU) of the Nigerian Military in Ebonyi launched an aerial view operation to rescue people trapped in the two affected villages by rising floodwaters.

Philanthropists, elected government officials, and other kindhearted people are currently helping the victims who are affected by the flood.

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What I would do in the case of a situation like that

In a case of a situation like that, the first thing that I will do is to call for help from another neighboring community. I will also make sure that I have secured my documents and those of my household. If there are children around, I will be taking them out of the flooded land to a more secure area, just as the people of the Ezzi community did by taking refuge in school facilities.

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Conclusion:

Natural disasters are not good because they can destroy lives and properties within the twinkle of an eye. In Nigeria, we have been experiencing natural disasters like floods in various states. Last month, there was a serious flood in Anambra state that led to the deaths of over 81 people. A similar thing happened in Kogi State along the Lokoja-Abuja road, and today I also talked about the one that happened in my place last week.

I am inviting @simonnwigwe, @yakspeace, and @yak to also take part in this contest.

All the photos used in this post are photos of the flood that happened in Ezzi and Ikwo villages in Ebonyi State and were taken by my friend Emeka Ikechukwu, a resident of the village.