Landslide: three children escape death in A’Ibom

Bassey Anthony, Uyo

Three children aged 5, 6, and 5 miraculously escaped death on Sunday when a landslide sank their kitchen a few minutes after preparing their dinner.

The incident also cut off Asutan street in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state into two.

Our correspondent reports that Asutan Street and other adjoining areas have been badly affected by erosion for over 30 years.

Narrating the incident on Monday, the landlord of the affected house, Mr. Francis Ikpe, described the landslide as devastating, adding that it was a miraculous escape for the children

“It was a devastating experience. Three children were preparing their meals in the kitchen. After they left the kitchen, it was not even up to five minutes, when the kitchen collapsed.

”The children were eating when suddenly there was a bang and the kitchen and everything inside it buried. They would have been trapped; it was a miracle,” Ikpe said.

He said the problem become serious when the state government decided to embark on street repairs and construction of drainages, saying water from six adjoining streets had been channeled to the place without a chamber constructed to receive the volume of water

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“I am the landlord of no 16, Asutan Street, the compound that is badly threatened by the erosion. We have lived with the erosion for more than 30 years; the dimension was not as disastrous as it is now.

“But when the state government decided to embark on massive streets repairs and drainages, water from the six adjoining streets, including barracks road, have been diverted to the place and no chamber was done to receive the water.

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“A lot of damage has been caused to that place. Whenever it rains the volume of water increases and this has been posing threats to lives and properties” he said.

He called on the state government to intervene before the house is completely swallowed by the rampaging slide.

On relocation order by the state government, Ikpe said “I just heard that a surveyor came here and address is sometimes ago. He brought a document purported to have been written by the state government in 2011, but no landlord has ever seen that document and there is an indication that the landlords acknowledged receipt of the document,” the landlord said.

He said if the state government said they should relocate they have no option if the government makes provisions for the relocation.

A car dealer and tenant, whose kitchen was swallowed in the slide, one Mohammed Umaru, said he went out to Okoita, on Sunday when he received a call that his house has been swallowed.

“He said” Yesterday (Sunday) I traveled to Okoita, where I heard a call by the landlord that the house has collapsed. I rushed back and what I saw was terrible. What we need now is help,. let the government do something,. I am helpless,” Umaru said.