Military offers counselling to Ketu South flood victims

The military has stepped in to offer immediate counselling services to victims of the recent tidal wave invasions at Agavedzi, Sallakope and, Amutinu in the Ketu South municipality of the Volta Region.

The exercise which started last Thursday is being carried out by clinical psychologists from the 66 Artillery Regiment in Ho.

This came to light when the Volta Regional Minister, James Gunu, visited the flood-hit enclave again to present another consignment of relief items to the victims.

“The people are traumatised by the devastation, and they need to be assisted to come out of that state,” he said.

Exhuming

Meanwhile, the Regional Minister said the Volta Regional Coordinating Council (VRCC), had engaged the Ketu South Directorate of Health to sensitise the people on the dangers of exhuming the bodies of their dead relatives for reburial at a new location.

A flood scene at Agavedzi

This comes in the wake of some residents retrieving corpses and coffins from the floods for re-interment on slightly drier lands.

The health directorate began a health screening of the people on the same day.

Mr Gunu also toured the relocation site where a project which took off with sponsorship from Ghana Gas to construct the new housing units for flood victims some years ago, stalled.

The Regional Minister pledged to follow up on the issue with Ghana Gas to revive the project.

“If the contactor fails to return to the project site, the GH¢2 million contract will be terminated and re-awarded,” Mr Gunu stated.

He maintained that the welfare of the people could no longer be toyed with and blamed the misery in the area on what he described as eight years of neglect and development drought under the previous government.

Tidal waves

So far it has been realised that 101 households have been affected by the brutal tidal waves.

The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) officer in-charge of the Regional Emergency Operations Centre, Paschal Agbagba, said a total of 519 people from the households had been displaced by the tidal waves.

The victims include 318 from 49 households at Amutinu; 172 from 31 households at Sallakope; and 129 people from 21 houses which were completely destroyed in Agavedzi, he added.

Currently, Mr Agbagba warned, the tidal waves were still high, with the sea now crossing the Denu-Keta Road, through the communities, into the lagoon opposite.

Relief items donated by NADMO included bags of rice, cooking oil, soap, mosquito nets, and used clothes. They also comprised plastic cups, plates, buckets and basins.