By; VITALIS UGOH, Calabar.
More than four thousand persons have been displaced just as their farm lands were destroyed following persistent rain in some local government areas of the state for the past three weeks.
The affected areas are Ogoja, Obudu, Yala, Ikom, and Biase. Others are Etung, Boki and Abi local government areas.
The flood destroyed over nine hundred farms such as rice, cassava, yams, vegetables, cocoa and palms.
Also flooded were over one thousand, two hundred houses causing the displacement of four thousand persons who are currently squatting with neighbours, friends and relatives.
Assessing the disaster, the Director General, Cross River State Emergency Management Agency, (SEMA), Mr John Inaku, described the disaster as a result of climate change as predicted by NIMET some months ago.
He said that he was satisfied with the resilience of the affected communities in mitigating the disaster attributing it to adequate publicity and sensitization by the agency.
Inaku said that government is employing its lean resources to ensure that the victims were provided with relief materials to cushion the effect of the disaster.
He urged them to exercise patience as government was taking pragmatic steps as well as mobilizing stakeholders to intervene in the disaster.
According to him, caution should be taken by farmers carrying out emergency harvesting of the flooded crops to avoid drowning while those in flooded homes should evacuate to higher grounds without delay.
Reacting, a victim, Mr Okpotu Agbaka of Aakwa village in Okpoma observed that most houses were at the verge of collapsing due to the saturation of ground water, which is springing up everywhere including bedrooms.
Agbaka said that most of the victims who were peasant farmers were suffering a double blow as both their houses and farms were affected and called for urgent intervention.
