Flooding
The corpses of two children, a boy and a nine-year-old girl were in Tuesday discovered in a drainage site after a heavy downpour in Tunga community, Minna, Nigeria State.
It was reliably gathered that the girl, an only daughter among three children of her parents, was sent to the Tunga market to purchase some items before the incident occurred.
She was accompanied by her elder brother, an 11-year-old boy.
At the time they left the house, the rain had paused momentarily, but there were still signs that the rain could come down heavily.
Almost immediately, it flooded all the drainage and roads in Tunga, making it impossible for motorists to move.
It was learnt that as both children were returning from the market, the girl may have slipped and fallen into the drainage and as the flood was carrying her away, her brother was shouting to residents in the neighbourhood to help him rescue his sister, who was being swept away by the flood.
The people could not help due to the level the water had reached and the force it carried.
They watched helplessly as the water carried the little girl.
The water kept carrying the girl while the brother went back to their residence to inform their parents about the tragedy.
The father of the girl was later contacted to identify his daughter’s corpse at a tunnel on Mandela Street (more than five kilometers from where the flood carried her), and when he got there, he found the corpse of the little girl and that of another boy who was also killed by the flood.
Reacting to the incident, the spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency NSEMA, Hussaine Ibrahim, expressed shock over the tragedy and said the agency would visit the girl’s family to find out more details.
“The agency is not aware of the disaster, but my people will visit the home of the girl at Tunga tomorrow to meet with the parents,” he said.
