Landslide sweeps 50 houses into river in Cross River

Over 50 houses in Agwaguwne in Biase local government area of Cross River State have in the past two weeks been swept by a landslide which hit the community.

The relentless landslide has also left over 2,000 other houses vulnerable as the earth on which they stand have been corroded and left loose. Governor Ben Ayade Vanguard’s visit to the area, Monday, revealed that deep cracks have developed on the floor of the earth in the community leaving many houses and electric poles tilting as they stand on loose soil.

“With this disaster, over 3,000 people will soon be rendered homeless as their houses will soon be swept away into the Cross River” Mr Kenedy Orok, an elder in the community stated. He narrated that in 1992, a team of environmentalists from the Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, visited the community and analyzed the land and stated that landslide would in less than ten years sweep the entire landscape in the community into the sea.

“In 1997, five years after that visit, an unprecedented landslide took place here and five people were killed, 48 injured and 30 houses swept away and since then, we have been witnessing landslide but the one we have witnessed in the past two weeks is unrivaled,” Orok lamented.

He stated that the entire community is in panic as no one knows whose house would be next in the persistent disaster, following the loose texture of the soil in the community. His words:

“Many people have relocated to the rehabilitation centre built by the Federal Government in collaboration with the Cross River State Government but most of the houses are yet to be completed so not everybody can be accommodated there.”

Mr John Inaku, the Director General of the State Emergency Management Agency who visited the area, yesterday, described the damage wroth by the landslide as “horrendous”. He called on the people to relocate to safer grounds for their safety, assuring that Governor Ben Ayade was looking into their plights.