Many Ghanaians have lost their lives through frequent floods in Ghana and elsewhere in the world.
Flood has become a major cause of death in Ghana and any part of the world where there is rainfall and snow.
Flood refers to an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry.
In the United States of America, flood is considered the number one natural disaster that has led to the destruction of many lives and within the period of 2005 to 2014, the average flood claim in the US was $42,000 approximately 215,249 in Ghana cedi.
On June 3, 2015, Accra witnessed unprecedented flood coupled with an explosion leading to the loss of 152 lives.
Recently, in the capital Accra, flood killed 7 people again of which only five bodies have been retrieved according to the National Disaster Management Organization [NADMO].
In the rural areas of Ghana, flood is recurrent and has caused many problems for people living in those part of the country, mainly due to insufficient social facilities to fight flood.
This is just to say the problem of flood is expected to be minimal in the urban areas but instead it happens more often.
Due to this reason, Ghanaians from all walks of lives must come together to find a lasting solution to recurrent flood situations.
The following are some of the reasons or factors behind the cause of frequent flood situations in Ghana.
Building in Waterways
The easiest definition to flood is heavy rainfall. Usually, people build on waterways.
Lack of Vegetation.
Trees play an important role in helping to control flood, they do this by blocking the speed the rainwater carries along.
But in most parts of the city, trees are felled uncontrollably sometimes for infrastructure development and at other times for no infrastructure.
In such cases when there is a heavy downpour rainwater moves to all directions on a tougher speed, entering into rooms of people, offices, schools and others to destroy property and life.
Town and Country Planning
Improper planning of cities and towns cannot be left out.
Due to the increasing pressure of people in towns and cities, more space is needed for accommodation, as a result, some people intentionally build on water drainage ways, or even break drainages that drive water out.
Whenever this happens the rainwater finds no channel to run through, this makes the water stagnant hence causing flood.
Lack of Dams and Reservoirs to collect rainwater.
In countries such as Egypt and Congo, there are Dams into which rainwater is collected and used to serve commercial purposes. Houses keep reservoirs to store water which they use for domestic purposes such as bathing, washing etc.
The benefit of these storage practice is to reduce the amount of water that moves freely to form flood.
In Ghana there is the Akosombo Dam and the Weija Dam to serve these purposes but the size of Ghana is too big and these few dams cannot completely solve the problem.
Most houses in Ghana do not have water reservoirs in which they can store this water to be used, as a result, rainwater piles up to form a flood which cause serious problems.
Inadequate water defence facilities to prevent the sea or river from extending its banks. Very few areas in Ghana have water defence facilities to stand against the flood of the sea or river.
As a result, water from the sea or river forces its way into smaller villages to destroy properties and claim precious lives. In some areas where there are these facilities, they lack maintenance and have become very weak hence any small amount of rainwater overcomes it and breaks it down.
Waste Disposal
Improper disposal of garbage or waste materials. Ghanaians have a habit of disposing their refuse into drains whenever it rains.
They hope the running water carries the waste away to somewhere they do not know but these refuse do not travel any far but rather stay within that community.
What happens is, the garbage fills the gutter, preventing rainwater from running through its channel successfully.
This leads to a pile of water that becomes a flood, those who try to walk in this water get hurt easily since they step on items they have no ideas about.
Instantly they lose concentration and the rainwater takes them away.
These are a few of the factors that causes flooding in the Ghanaian community, and since a lot of lives are lost through this social canker, there is the need to rise and fight against it.
