Ebonyi: Landslide Blocks Afikpo-Ohafia Road

A landslide that occurred at Ogwuma Hill in Edda in Ebonyi State blocked a section of a major road linking Afikpo and Ohafia in Abia state, our correspondent gathered on Tuesday.

The incident affected the wall of the Ogwuma Hill.

Governor David Umahi, who visited the scene yesterday, attributed the cause to the activities of villagers residing at the edge of the hill.

He directed them to evacuate the area with immediate effect me.

He stated that the evacuation would enable the state government to deploy earth moving machines to the site within seven days.

He further appealed to the federal government to assist in the reconstruction of the collapsed retaining wall.

According to him, “This is Ogwuma, a section of the road after Iyere flyover.

“It has been totally blocked by landslide, and since 2004, we have been having very serious landslide here.

“In fact, I lost one of my workers here about 2008 during the construction of a very heavy retaining wall which is what sustained this road from 2008 till few days ago.

“As you can see, a lot of houses sprang up there. This disturbs the ecosystem of this section of the hill and the effect is what you see.

“The road has been blocked and it is going to take quite a lot of efforts to even unblock the road, before thinking about how to reconstruct a long section of the retaining wall.

“Nobody is passing through here just because of the activities of very few people.”

He said the residents of the area would have to leave for proper work to be done.

According to him, “We have to take over the hill for people to continue to use this road, especially at this time we have solved the problem of the Iyere bridge which hitherto posed a serious hindrance on the road.”

He said his government would within one week deploy ‘about five caterpillars, dozers and trucks to clear the road for us to see whether the slide is such that it could be contained’.

Our correspondent gathered that the site of the landslide was a few metres away from a mega flyover project site embarked upon by Ebonyi State government to enable motorists to navigate through the terrain of both Ogwuma Hill and Inyere Valley.