By Jude Chinedu, Enugu
The traditional ruler of Uhunowerre community in Igboeze South local government area of Enugu state, Igwe Sunday Ogbonna, has promised to consult the gods of the land to unravel the circumstances that led to the recent fatal rainstorm in the area. No fewer than three persons were consumed in the storm with many others still hospitalised with various degrees of injury.
Speaking with newsmen after the incident, Igwe Ogbonna said he would summon his cabinet members to proffer suggestions on how to consult the gods of the land to know why such an unusual wind wreaked havoc in the community.
The victims of the storm were two students of Community Secondary School, Uhunowerre, identified as Edith Ugwu, SS-2, and one Onyeka, who was said to be watching the build-up to the school’s forthcoming inter-house sports.
The other was a bricklayer, Anthony Mammah, who was working at the Mario Institute of Hospitality and Entrepreneurship on the fateful day.
IgweOgbonna said he was shocked by the incident, pointing out that his people had not witnessed such a disaster in the history of the community. He said that the storm was a strange one given the fact that it only targeted public buildings and no private house was affected.
It was gathered that the storm took the community unawares as it uprooted trees, tanks filled with water and removed every other structure on its way. Most hit by the ill wind was the Mario Institute of Hospitality and Entrepreneurship, a Catholic tertiary institution where the bricklayer lost his life.
Two of his sons who were with him also sustained various degrees of injury, including a broken leg, and are currently receiving treatment at Faith Foundation Hospital, Nsukka. At the secondary school, the two students were struck dead by the storm while in one of the classrooms of the college. The class in which they were was submerged alongside others; trees were uprooted and roofs blown off.
Beyond the havoc at Mario Institute and the secondary school, the storm also pulled down buildings at the community primary school in the area and further destroyed parts of the buildings in the Anglican Church in the community.
Also speaking with newsmen after the tragic and devastating incident, Rev. Fr. Cornelius Obe, the director of Mario Institute, said the storm collapsed the multi-purpose hall of the institution where the bricklayer was killed. Fr. Obe narrated that the deceased bricklayer was trapped in the hall with his two children when the building collapsed. He said that it was the shouts of one of the children that attracted attention to them but expressed regrets that the door of the building fell on the deceased who died the next day at Faith Foundation Hospital, Nsukka.
“The incident in my school was least expected. We are only agonising because of the lives lost in the ugly incident, the entire community would have been wiped out by the storm. I was still in my office around 5 p.m. that fateful day when I started hearing wild sound; it was like rockets and explosives descending with force, shaking roofs and buildings, after about five minutes, someone rushed to my office and informed me that Mamah and his children had been trapped in the collapsed school hall.
“I rushed outside and all the buildings in the vicinity were damaged, trees were uprooted, building roofs and walls blown off and electric poles pulled down,’’ the director said.
In his comment, the chairman of the Parents/Teachers Association of the institute, Mr. Felix Amoke, described the disaster as unfortunate because of loss of lives and damaged school buildings.
Amoke urged the federal, state and local governments as well as good spirited individuals to come to the aid of Mario Institute to enable the school to rebuild the damaged buildings. “The PTA recommended that Mamah should be immortalised by naming one building in the school after him,” he said.
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