Flood Kills Four Bank Staff in Onitsha

By David-Chyddy Eleke in Awka

Four members of staff of a new generation bank in Onitsha, Anambra State, were at the weekend drowned by flood, following a heavy rainfall.

The deceased bankers were said to have closed from work and defied the heavy downpour to go home in the bank’s vehicle, after the rainfall had persisted.

The vehicle was said to have struggled with the flood, which had covered the entire road.

The flood swept the bankers’ car, plunging them into the Sakamori drainage, which is channelled to the River Niger, causing the death of its occupants.

The Sakamor drainage, which swallowed the vehicle, sources in Onitsha said, is about 15 feet deep.

According to a petty trader along Obodoukwu road who simply identified himself as Okechukwu, “it was the flood that carried the vehicle to the Sakomori because it is a small vehicle. The driver tried to resist the force of the flood but the vehicle had no weight.

“They were about four, I think with one little girl I saw as they were panicking inside the vehicle. After the rain, the vehicle was recovered with three out of the four of them, excluding the baby girl”,  he disclosed.

He further added that: “The next day the corpse of the accountant who was driving the vehicle  was recovered but the little girl – nobody knows if she has been washed into the River Niger,” he added.

Also speaking, another eyewiness who pleaded anonymity said that, “This Sakomori was built to control the high volume of flood that wrecks havoc whenever it rains in Onitsha and environs. You can see that it is so deep that when the banker’s vehicle plunged into it, nobody was ready to come to the rescue of the occupants, we were watching them drown, what can we do, the flood on the road was up to two feet height and the sakamori has over flown its bank and that was why the flood was much on the road.

“Unless you don’t want to live nobody will come to their rescue at that point in time because the flood will carry you into the Sakomori and straight to the river Niger,” he stated.

Attempt to confirm the incident from the Anambra State Police Command did not yield results as the command’s image maker,  Mohammed Haruna did not reply to messages sent to him.