08 Mar 2017

Assistant council secretary in the Tutume Sub-district council, Mr Uyapo Mafunye says figures from the Tutume sub-district disaster committee show that more than 100 people in Gweta are being evacuated from flooding areas where houses are submerged in water.
Updating the disaster committee meeting on March 7, Mr Mafunye, also the evacuating team coordinator based in Gweta, said from the past weekend, the water level was increasing and some households were flooded and therefore threatening nursing houses at the Gweta primary hospital.
On Monday, he said, over 70 families were moved to safer places because their houses were submerged and the number went up to 128 by Tuesday.
At the hospital, he said about 58 houses for nurses were submerged resulting in more than 40 nurses stranded with some of their property moved to hospital wards and tents.
Disaster committee chairperson, Mr Ledule Baraki said by Tuesday, the water crossing the Maun-Gweta road into the village had covered a distance of about 1.6 kilometers and covered 2km on the road and still increasing.
Mr Baraki said, by Tuesday again, 119 students of Gweta and 132 of Gasebalwe primary schools did not go to school.
Thus, he appealed to different stakeholders to assist them with tents noting that they only had 10 and was expecting eight which were not enough given the number of families in need of urgent accommodation.
Further, he said it had been two weeks of floods and water still not  subsiding, thus appealed to those with vehicles and boats to help evacuate people to safer places.
Meanwhile, WUC officials had appealed to the community not to drink the flowing water without having boiled it because it might be contaminated. ENDS