Tragedy:Sakamori flood channel flushes away 6 cloth sellers in Onitsha

www.odogwublog.com reports exclusively that it was tears and agony Saturday evening when six roadside cloth sellers dealing mainly on Jeans and T-shirts were swept away by a rampaging flood when they fell into Sakamori gutter.

The incident, according to an eye-witness, occurred at about 5:30 p.m. at the foot of Upper Iweka Flyover Bridge by Ezeiweka Road Junction, along Onitsha Owerri road, Onitsha, Anambra state.

Another Human Rights Coordinator who witnessed the incident but would not want to be mentioned said he nearly jumped into the gutter to save the victims but the flood was terrific.

The cloth sellers were allegedly standing on top of the deep, wide Sakamori gutter when unexpectedly, the makeshift plank that covered the gutter as a bridge suddenly broke into two pieces and they all plunged into the gutter.
It is a tradition now for traders to convert every available space in Onitsha for trading despite several warnings against street trading. This allegedly was as a result of their inability to pay for a full shop in any of the markets in the commercial city.

Our source said passersby who witnessed the incident, cried helplessly as no one dared jumping into the rampaging flood to avoid being swept away as well and as at the time of filing this report, yesterday, the where about of their corpses had not been traced, neither could their identities be ascertained.

The Police Area Commander for Onitsha, Mr. Philip Ezekiel and the Divisional police Officer, DPO at Awada, Mr. Joseph Dimale, (CSP), both said they were not aware of the incident and assured to investigate.
The Publicity Secretary of Anambra Markets Amalgamated Traders Association, AMATAS, Uzor A. Uzor described the incident as very unfortunate and regretted that most of the traders in Onitsha do not like to move into the market where there are vacant shops but rather prefer to do businesses at the roadsides.