Flood kills 8-year-old boy in Anambra

An eight-year-old boy, identified as Chinwe, has been killed when a surging flood flushed him into a deep erosion.

The incident happened late on Thursday behind the school of Nursing, Nkpor in Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State.

It was learnt that a combination of surging floods coming from the Immaculate Hearts Sisters Convent and our Ladies Industrial Centre all in Nkpor had during last night’s rainfall, swept the boy into the gully.

His drowned corpse was said to be recovered the next day from about half a kilometre away from the spot where he plunged, with one of his hands broken.

The victim, who is a son of a vulcanizer in the area, was said to be returning from a journey with his mother during a rainfall when the incident happened.

It was gathered also that the boy while approaching the gully from where he and his mother were expected to pass through to their home, started running faster than his mother, thereby prompting his mother to start shouting.

His mother’s shouts and calls for him to turn back fell on deaf ears, as he continued running until he reached the narrow part of the gully.

It was gathered that in his attempt to jump over the gully, the surging flood swept his feet off and he plunged into it.

More casualties were averted when an attempt by his mother, who was carrying another baby on her back, to also jump into the gully, in search of her son, was prevented by some youths within the neighbourhood.

The teenagers quickly jumped into the gully in search of the victim but could not see him.

Eyewitnesses said it was only the next morning that his corpse with one hand has broken was found inside the other side of the gully about a kilometre away from the spot where he plunged.

The bereaved parent, who refused to talk about the incident hired a vehicle which conveyed the corpse from Nkpor to their home town.

Sympathisers said the death of the boy meant that the family had lost three out of their four children.

They blamed the state government for allowing the gully to expand from an ordinary minor hole to a big gully over the years instead of constructing a ring or box culvert to link the road to the streets.

A community member and also a former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Idemili branch, Mr Samuel Chukwukelu, said successive governments in the state had abandoned the community in terms of roads.

Chukwukelu said the contractor who was awarded the road project from Our Ladies road through Uke Street to Attah Road linking Nkpor/Umuoji Road, abandoned the project halfway at the particular erosion-prone area, which he said has been widened and deepened by the surging floods and now been converted into a refuse dump site by the residents.

“The government had neglected the Nkpor community in terms of developmental programmes, except for Senator Chris Ngige, the incumbent Labour minister who rallied round during his regime as governor that constructed the road from Tarzan through Afor Nkpor to Eke Nkpor and that was all.

“The death of the boy was unwarranted and unfortunate, if successive governments had done the needful, this would not have occurred,” he said.

When contacted, the state police spokesman, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, said the report had not been brought before him as of the time of filing this report. (Saturday Tribune)