Four persons are feared drowned in Onitsha, Anambra State, following a heavy rain at the weekend.
The deceased, said to be workers of one of the commercial banks on Obodoukwu road, Ogbaru Local Government Area, were heading home when the incident happened.
The driver of the vehicle they boarded, said to be the bank’s accountant, struggled to beat the flood which covered the entire road, but the vehicle suddenly plunged into the drainage channelled into River Niger.
A trader on the road, who identified himself as Okechukwu, said all the occupants of the car drowned as the vehicle was completely consumed in the flood.
He said: “The flood carried the vehicle to the Sakomori drainage, which is about 15 feet deep and filled to capacity. The driver tried to resist the force of the flood but could not because of the size of the vehicle.
“I saw about four of them with one little girl panicking inside the vehicle. After the rain, the vehicle was recovered with three of the occupants.”
According to him, the driver’s body was recovered the next day but it was uncertain if the little girl drowned.
Another witness, who pleaded for anonymity, regretted that the drainage built to control flood could wreck such havoc.
“You can see it is so deep that when the vehicle plunged into it, nobody was ready to come to their rescue.
“We watched helplessly as they drowned. There was nothing we could do considering the depth of the drainage,” he added.
Efforts to reach the Okpoko Divisional Police Officer were unsuccessful but a senior policeman, who pleaded for anonymity, said they were aware of the incident.
He added that the bodies had been deposited in the morgue.
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