By Mabinty M. Kamara
Scores of people have been left homeless in Sorogbema Chiefdom, Pujehun District, after a heavy rain storm blew across the chiefdom on Friday 5th June.
Witnesses say homes, schools and community centers were destroyed in towns like Jendema, Kpakala, Tindor, Wai, Fairo, Gonohun, Findoh, Maina, Juring Kulangor, Fanga and Zimmi.
A Councilor in Ward 357 in the chiefdom, Francis Ngele, explained to Politico the situation and level of destruction.
“It was very serious last night. It attacked most of the villages. Even in Fangah Town, a palm tree fell on the tap and damaged it completely and also the roof of the SLC School in Juring was partly taken apart,” he said.
The chiefdom which is in Constituency 101, is represented in parliament by Sidie Tunis. He told Politico on Saturday that even though there was destruction, no lives were lost as a direct result of the incident.
“A lot of damage happened; fortunately no death has been recorded so far. But, most of the villages including big towns like Jendema and Wai saw a lot of properties destroyed by the storm,” Tunis said.
Pujehun, which is in the Southern region of Sierra Leone, has rivers like Moa running through it. Tunis said the chiefdom where this incident occurred is susceptible to such incidents during the rains.
The governing Sierra Leone People’s Party MP noted that an assessment was expected to be done by Sunday, 7th June, and that it would be done in coordination with the Office of National Security. He added that from that they could hopefully understand the scale of the destruction and the type of intervention needed.
“I am already in contact with the Deputy National Coordinator of the ONS and he has alerted the District Coordinator. So by tomorrow, an assessment will be done alone with NGOs in the area, based on which interventions will come. Once the ONS has done its assessment, we will have a determined number of properties destroyed and the number of people that have been homeless,” he said.
“This is not the first time such incident is happening here. This has happened a couple of times. We have also had flooding in Jendema and other areas. And again the ONS was very useful and the NGOs were supportive, which I hope to see again,” Tunis added.
Mustapha Jengeh Massaquoi, Paramount Chief of Sorogbema Chiefdom, lamented that it’s a stressful moment in the chiefdom, having people being homeless in just a night, noting that they were still awaiting the comprehensive report of the assessment. But he added that there own preliminary assessment of the damages indicated that 14 houses and schools were damaged in Tindor Village; in Sinni Village about five houses, one school and a mosque; in Borborbu three houses and a mosque; in Wai five houses, in Juring four houses and a school; in Fanga three houses and a tap.
Sheik Sowa, Chairman of the Pujehun District Council, also said that they were waiting for the assessment report to determine their intervention.
As at press time we couldn’t get a comment from the disaster management office of ONS.
Copyright © 2020 Politico Online
