Unusual And Bizarre Disaster

From:
[link to www.punchng.com]

How tremor, landslide swallowed our farmlands– Victims of Enugu earth tremor
By Adelani Adepegba
Published: Saturday, 18 Oct 2008

Residents of Ugwueme, Umuhu, Ugulesi Awgu and Ezinese Mgbidi communities in Awgu Local Government Area, Enugu State could not believe their eyes when they visited their farmland in the morning of October 7, 2008.


Expansive farmlands measuring more than 20 square kilometres had been destroyed by a tremor.

On account of the incident which was later explained as a landslide, there were huge cracks and depressions on the land as if a straying ballistic missile had exploded there. Some trees sank in the depression while others were completely uprooted.

Materials suspected to have been thrown up from the earth crust during the tremor littered the entire area.

Expectedly, the affected communities were in an uproar over the incident which had literally taken away the means of livelihood of the majority of the people who are predominantly farmers.

Although the farming season has passed, the devastation wrought by mother nature left the residents bewildered. While some described it as an earthquake, others argued it was a tremour and a forewarning about a serious natural disaster that may yet happen.

The traditional Prime Minister of Awgu, Chief Stephen Onuorah, who visited the scene on the second day of the incident, said he felt a massive shaking and reverberations under his feet. He said he heard a noise that sounded like the roaring of a bulldozer. Surmising that it was an earthquake, he contacted the Chairman of Awgu Local Government Area, Chief Uche Anioke, who later led some officials to the site.

Amazed at the level of devastation, the council boss contacted experts from the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, but the confusion over the incident was dispelled by the team of experts from the National Geo-hazards Monitoring Centre led by the director of the agency, Mr. Alex Nwegbu, and Prof Cornelius Nwajide, a lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and consultant to Shell Petroleum Development Corporation.

The team which also included geologists, geophysicists and seismists, visited the farmland on Tuesday. They described the incident as a landslide which occurred on account of massive rainfall which “peculated into the land to an impermeable layer and caused land cracks”.

Nwegbu in his preliminary report traced the remote cause of the incident to the geographical positioning of Awgu which was sitting on a ridge belt called clay star. The belt runs from Idah in Kogi State through Awgu to Arochukwu community in Cross River State, all of which are prone to geo-hazards.

The landslide, Nwegbu added, happened because the earth was dry and cracked during the dry season. When it rains, the cracks absorb water which percolates and moves in a rotational and translational manner and causes massive fracture on the earth surface.

“This incident is a major one never witnessed in this part of the world. The cracks happened to be part of a certain ridge of over 500 km that stretches from Idah northwards towards Benue River, surging southwards all the way towards Enugu through Awgu and Leru (Imo State) and peters out at Arochukwu. The scar on this ridge must be avoided either for building or for farming,” Nwegbu warned.

The experts found that the integrity of the land is poor because the sedimentary rock underneath can cave in easily and dissolve and the texture can no longer hold water. They took a sample of the soil for further investigation.

Nwajide said that the tremor could not be controlled and could indeed happen again. He stated that the affected land had been rendered useless for any productive activities, warning residents not to do anything on the area.

A farmer, who was affected by the devastation, Ugwuanyi, said he could no longer recognise his farm when he got there, adding that the whole area looked like the scene of a major battle between two great elemental forces.

Anioke, in an interview with Saturday Punch, thanked the experts for responding quickly to his calls, but noted that his office was facing a serious challenge managing the social crisis that nature had placed on his doorstep without warning.

Many families who lost their farmland and crops now rely on him for their survival, a challenge the council was ill-equipped to handle, he stated.

Calling on the Federal Government to come to the aid of the communities, the council chairman explained that the affected families would need to purchase new farmlands and seedlings as their land had been lost forever. “The challenge before the council is to provide relief materials like food and water to the communities. We are trying to identify genuine land owners and we are also making wide consultations to see how to address the social dislocations the disaster has thrown up,” he said.

Anioke said he was yet to get any offer of help from the state and federal emergency management agencies, stressing that a quick response to the incident was key to ameliorating the suffering of the communities which lost their sources of water during the disaster.

During the week, the Enugu State House of Assembly also called on the Federal Government to take urgent steps to investigate the cause and implication of the earth tremor and proffer solutions to it without delay.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Resources and Environmental Management, Chris Ugwu, in a report sent to the state assembly, described the incident as an unusual disaster, noting that with the magnitude of the ecological disaster, there was need for the Federal Government and the state Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources to pay special attention to the community by providing fertilizer and improved variety of seedlings for the next farming season.

Ugwu said that his committee, which visited the area, observed that large portions of land were compressed into crooked ridges and valleys.

He said, “In view of the bizarre nature of the incident, the attendant fear and devastation it has caused, the National and State Emergency Management Agencies should come to the assistance of the people of the community.”