By Elias Ntungwe Ngalame
Deadly floods in the cities of Douala and
Yaounde recently have pushed the Cameroon government to support the city
councils in a series of measures to avoid future losses from weather-linked
disasters.
The government has called for better regulation of the housing
construction code and given its accord for demolition of all illegally built
houses in urban swamps of Douala and Yaounde, the two most populated cities in
the country with over 6 million inhabitants.
Among other measures, the ministry of urban
development will financially and technically support urban councils improve
maintenance of the river banks and city drainage systems to reduce the
vulnerability of residential areas to floods.
Given that a large portion of the
population depends on water from wells which must have been polluted given the
proximity with pit toilets while the standing water remains fertile ground for
mosquitoes, health experts fear cholera epidemic and recurrent malaria attacks
might be looming if proper precautions are not taken at all levels.
Health experts say the number of
cholera cases in Douala alone increases to over 400 per week during the rainy
periods.
The two city councils have to that
effect drafted plans to boost water resources with the supply of huge water
containers at affordable cost to encourage rain water harvesting by households
and entire neighbourhoods.
Insurance companies are now also making big gains as government call for
property owners to insure their property to avoid further financial losses from
climate change disasters is increasingly heeded to.
Heavy rains last June
triggered major flooding in the Douala V district area, submerging over 60,000
hectares (150,000 acres) of land killing four children and forcing thousands to
flee for safety.
Though living in swampy areas in
Cameroon is unlawful because of the high risk of flooding, the land is cheap,
attracting many of the city’s urban poor. The two cities of Yaounde have
recurrently suffered from devastating floods with the population paying a heavy
cost.
“Inhabitants of squatter settlements
such as the Douala V council area and other flood-prone areas of the economic
and political capital live in constant fear of every drop of rain,” Didier
Yimkoua, an environmentalist and secretary general of the National Salvation
Front political party, told the press after the Douala floods.
Experts
attribute the floods to the arbitrary occupation of land and the wanton
destruction of the forest along the Wouri estuary causing the river to overflow
its banks. Douala inhabitants especially those
near the coast say they live in constant fear each time it rains.
“At the drop of the rains we think
the rainwater running through the streets is the ocean about to overwhelm the
city,” said 50-year-old Jean Nouadjeu one of the floods victim who lost his
home and business.
For the past two weeks
officials of the Douala V council area
and the Yaounde city councils have proceeded with forcefully evicted and
demolition of most of the housing – much of it built with wooden plants and other
makeshift materials tearing down entire neighbourhoods leaving thousands
homeless and helpless.
“We think the only way to put an end
to such catastrophe in the future is to demolish and force people out of these
risky and vulnerable zones,” said Fritz Ntone Ntone, the government delegate to
the Douala city council.
The government says the days of
administrative tolerance are over and laws against such illegal buildings must
be enforced.
To reduce the vulnerability of
cities to floods the city councils plans to carry out hydraulic and geological
studies and then draw up a map of areas likely to be flooded after heavy rains.
Following last month’s floods, the
government has released $185 million into Douala’s Urban Development Programme
for the Emergency Rehabilitation and Constriction of Infrastructure fund.
Experts have warned that extreme
rains leading to floods will occur more often in future due to climate change.
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