Rain Storm has reported destroyed 90 houses, a Church and two schools in five affected Communities in Kanke Local Government Area of Plateau State.
The destruction of the Tuesday night rainstorm has rendered victims in the affected communities homeless and many are now taking refuge in neighbouring communities.
“The affected victims are just the ones our investigation teams took inventory of the damages in Communities including those in the interiors, ” Mr Emmanuel Lar, Kanke Council Chairman disclosed.
“Also destroyed is St Monica’s Catholic Church, GSS Nemel and a Private school, Ben-Jonah Private secondary School, whose damage are enormous and devastating,” the chairman lamented.
Lar, who said that no life and food stuffs were lost to the storm, lamented the ordeal the affected persons have been subjected.
He explained that most hit were the people of Kopgin and Nemel communities in Ampang East District of the local government.
According to him, “Most of the electricity poles linking the community within the axis were also destroyed.
While sympathising with the victims, Lar prayed God to give them “the heart to accept in good faith the challenges in this difficult moment.”
He promised to ask the Federal Government and the State Government for assistance for the communities as soon as the extent of damage was compiled.
“We are in dire need of assistance from the both NEMA and SEMA to see how we could restore back hope to the victims particularly the church and the private school that were totally destroyed by the rainstorm.
“As a Council, we are going to swing into action to see what we can do to the households affected in the unfortunate incident,” he pledged.
Narrating the ordeal of the St Monica’s Catholic Church, Catechist Bitrus Koprang’ah, described the incident as “quite shocking” and traumatic.”
“Our joy is that God intervened as no life was lost except valuables of immeasurable quantity as the church will have no option than to resort to daily morning services under the trees.” the clergy stated.
Also speaking on the incident, Mr Jacob Kassam, a Senior Legislative Aide to the Senate President, expressed his sympathy to the victims of the storm and called on the federal and state governments to come to their aid.
“As a son of the soil, l share in their pains and grief over the sad incident and cal on well meaning individuals and corporate organizations to come to our aid and give us some succur,” Kassam pleaded.