About 1000 residents of Migori County have been displaced from their homes by raging floods following the heavy rains pounding the area.
The flood victims mainly in Nyatike are currently taking refuge in different rescue camps and are in urgent need of relief supplies from government and well-wishers.
Yesterday, it emerged at a joint National and County governments Disaster Management Committee meeting held in Migori town that floods had destroyed homes and displaced people in Nyatike, Uriri, Awendo and Kuria East constituencies.
The Migori governor, Okoth Obado who co-chaired the meeting with area County Commissioner (CC), Joseph Rotich appealed for urgent distribution of food, medicine and tarpaulins to save the increasing victims now facing the risk of dying from opportunistic ailments and hunger.
Rotich said the security team in the area will move fast to close all gold mining spots in the region to avoid deaths of miners resulting from collapsing mines.
“We have to block our people from going down those tunnels at this point in time when the soils are weak because of too much water. We want to save them from the danger of being buried alive in the mine pits,” he said and directed all Deputy County Commissioners and security agencies to guard the mines.
During the meeting, different government departments and Agencies directly associated with the safety of the population in flood hit spots gave comprehensive reports on the looming dangers arising from the floods after carrying out an extensive assessment of the situation on the ground.
The Red Cross Society of Kenya, a lead agency in disaster response, said more than 200 people had moved to a rescue camp at Kaputo primary school but lack food and risks the danger of a cholera outbreak due to the poor sanitation around.
The County Red Cross Coordinator, Kevin Ochieng’ said some ten households at Sagama village had been affected while hundreds of people in Senye, Nyora, Kabuto and Angugo villages have been forced to move to safer places after the over-flowing water canals at the lower Kuja Irrigation Scheme discharged their excess water into homes.
He said agricultural firms, mainly rice, had all been destroyed, a situation that will see the region register poor harvest this season and require people to be assisted with food in the post-current floods.
Governor Obado said the county government was keen to make urgent repairs on destroyed roads on short term response as they work on logistics to offer long term solutions.
“We must also mobilise and pool up resources from both the National and County governments to see that our people are saved from the current weather situation,” the governor said.
The meeting also formed a secretariat to come up with very important issues to address as emergencies and draw up a full budget to allow the county emergency response committee assists the victims adequately.
By George Agimba
