Authorities in Ghana demolish 360 unauthorized structures on waterways

Ghana Broadcasting Corporation: Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has demolished over 360 unauthorised structures on waterways as efforts to reduce floods in the metropolis. Mr Alfred Vanderpuije, Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive, who said this on Tuesday, attributed the reduction of floods in Accra this year to efforts of stakeholders.

These are Hydrological Services Department and National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) who organised extensive exercises, constructed new drains and de-silted choked drains. This was contained in a speech read on his behalf at the opening of a three-day ECOWAS Regional Awareness and Sensitisation Workshop on integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in development policies of countries in the sub-region.

…The participants were experts and focal persons on disaster risk management as well as donor communities and expected to come out with early warning and response network on disasters and plans to reduce vulnerability to Climate Change in West Africa.

Mr Vanderpuije noted that Ghana, like any other country was not immune to disasters adding she had suffered from various types of disasters including earthquakes, fires, floods, army worm invasion and disease epidemic like H1N1 influenza….

A view of downtown Accra, shot by Guido Sohne, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license