By Steven Bockarie Mansaray Kabala
A two-day rainstorm has hit and destroyed some 75 houses and damaged properties worth millions of leones in the northern town of Kabala of Koinadugu district, authorities have said.
The chairman Koinadugu district council, Sheku Samuel Kamara, told Politico that he was informed by some local authorities of Neya chiefdom and asked for his intervention.
He said he immediately passed on the information to other natives of Kabala now resident in Freetown and abroad to ramp up emergency relief support.
“In response, the minister of finance, Dr. Kaifala Marah, donated sixty bundles of zinc, assorted building materials worth one million five hundred thousand leones. We have also written letters to humanitarian organizations for their interventions,” he said.
One of the affected persons, Bockarie Marah, told Politico that deforestation was the major cause of the disaster. He said almost all the trees, which used to serve as wind breakers, had been cut down due to farming activities. He called on the ministry of agriculture and forestry to embark on a tree planting project to avoid more problems in future.
Storm and fire disaster had affected some villages in the Diang, Mongor and Neya chiefdoms in the last one month.
Last week the Member of Parliament for Constituency 44 in the Koinadugu district, Alusine Marrah, reported that fire had consumed 4 villages and claimed one life.
He told parliament that the four villages included Mongor Bendugu with a 3-classroom building and furniture of a senior secondary school caught fire after pupils allegedly set some fire to drive away honey bees from one of the classrooms.
He said the other village, Gbenekoro, was burnt down by fire when some men working on the farmland of the town chief, inadvertently set fire to the field that later got out of control and consumed everything, including the chief who could not escape after his foot got trapped in a hole.
“Nyandakolia village was the third in a row. The fire was said to have been caused by children” the MP said, who were incinerating trash which “resulted in a huge inferno that burned down over 100 houses, a mosque, property and food bans”. While the fourth village was Mansadukoro where 27 houses were gutted.
(C) Politico 24/04/14
