Thousands of flood victims still need help, official says

About 40,000 people in and near Accra are still affected by floods that swept coastal Ghana in late June, a senior official of Ghana’s National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) told IRIN on Friday. NADMO’s deputy director for relief and reconstruction, Asomaning Mensah, said that with help from the international community, his organisation has been providing relief for 15,000 people “severely affected” by the floods. “Severely affected”, he said, meant people who had lost their homes and/or all or most of their belongings. Among the hardest hit were people who lived along gullies. There were not enough resources, he said, to help the remaining 25,000 victims. The floods, caused by heavy rains on 28 June, swamped much of Accra and areas in nearby Central Region. There was also some isolated flooding in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, and the western town of Takoradi. Most of the waters have receded in the Accra area, but some people are still unable to return home, Mensah said. The exact number of people displaced is still unknown. He added that UN agencies such as UNICEF, UNDP and WHO had donated relief items for the worst affected people. The German Embassy in Ghana had also asked for details of relief items needed. These, he said, included rice, beans, cooking oil, mattresses, blankets, mats, and used clothing for children and adults. Water sources have been purified with chlorine provided by UNICEF, which has also donated 20 water tanks with a capacity of some 7,000 litres each. These have been sent to the most distressed areas, Mensah said. A few cholera cases were detected and these had been treated, he added. Japan has offered to help rebuild bridges, schools and clinics. Mensah said relief officials began assessing the flood damage to infrastructure on Thursday and were due to complete the review on Monday.