Hundreds of Freetown residents on Tuesday, June 5, 2018, the World Environment Day, came together to plant trees in the honour of the more than 1,000 people killed or missing following the devastating landslide and flooding disaster at the Mortomeh community, Regent, in the capital Freetown on August 14, 2017.

The landslide – comprising a mix of clay soil and boulders – ripped through the city of Freetown with tremendous energy, destroying everything in its path. The incident had a massive human impact, with over 6,000 people affected and caused significant destruction and damage to critical infrastructure.

The ceremony marked the launch of the National Tree Planting Day by the Government of Sierra Leone, which will see the planting of some 20,000 trees by hundreds of volunteers across the strip of land covering the disaster area to build resilience.

The event was organised to mark an important phase of the World Bank-supported Freetown Emergency Recovery Project, which is designed to support the government’s resilient recovery programme. The project aims to rehabilitate and rebuild damaged infrastructure, including remediating the landslide area and strengthening the disaster risk management and early warning capacities. This was informed by a Damage and Loss Assessment that was undertaken immediately after the disaster, supported by the World Bank and United Nations, which indicated recovery needs of more than $80 million.

“We consider the disaster and death of the over one thousand Sierra Leoneans as a painful loss of human capital and lives, which was the result of the mismanagement of our environment. The government, in collaboration with our development partners, is determined to work on the prevention of such degradation and the loss of human capital now and in the future,” said Samking Koihinah Braima, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry representing the President.

“Government takes the issues of the environment, forestry, conservation and agriculture very seriously. We therefore commit ourselves to make Sierra Leone and its environment sustainably green while equally working towards the country’s individual and collective environmental sensitive prosperity,” he added.

The first phase of the slope remediation measures was to reprofile the main slope of the landslide and recreate the existing drainage channels. Now that this phase is complete, the second phase is to re-plant the area to help hold the soils in place and reduce the surface run-off. Although the work carried out so far is reducing the instability of the slope, it remains a high-risk area.

President Julius Maada Bio recently setup a Mudslide Prevention Inter-Agency Committee to coordinate between key ministries, agencies and development partners, including the World Bank, to address the urgency of the situation with the rainy season just starting. It is with this is mind that the government is considering demarking the area as a protected memorial park, in memory for those who lost their lives and were impacted by the landslide.

“The fatal mudslides and severe floods of 2017 are stark reminders of how devastating the impacts of climate-induced hazards can be, particularly when combined with poorly planned human activities such as deforestation, encroachment within risky areas, unregulated construction of settlements on steep slopes, as well as weak monitoring and poor enforcement of environmental and land use regulations,” said Dr. Gayle Martin, World Bank Country Manager for Sierra Leone. “The World Bank is greatly encouraged by the establishment of the Mudslide Inter-Agency Committee and the development of a realistic workplan by the government to coordinate the response. The Bank stands ready to support this process in a manner that is consistent with our environmental and social safeguard policies.”

Dr. Martin urged the youths and surrounding communities to play an important stewardship role by looking after the trees and maintaining the site as a protected area for many years to come.

A Multi-City Hazard and Risk Assessments for Freetown, Makeni and Bo are close to completion. The reports will help to identify key hotspots that are highly exposed to flooding, landslides, sea level rise and coastal erosion, and provide a menu of options to manage these risks.

A windstorm has destroyed 1,536 rooms and property worth millions of naira in some communities in four local government areas of Jigawa State.

Alhaji Sani Yusuf, the Executive Secretary, Jigawa State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse, the state capital, on Wednesday, June 6, 2018.

Yusuf said the disaster, which occurred between May 3 and June 6, affected 833 people in 12 villages in Babura, Dutse, Guri, Gumel and Kiyawa local government areas of the state.

According to him, in Babura, the windstorm affected 58 persons and destroyed 84 rooms in Ajja and Dorawa villages.

In Dutse, the executive secretary said the disaster affected 273 persons and destroyed 1,247 rooms in Warwade, Saya-Saya, Sabon Gari, Jidawa, Tumballe, Sabuwar Takur and Jigawar Habu villages.

Similarly in Guri, the windstorm destroyed 543 rooms and affected 305 persons in Dayin village while in Gumel town 208 rooms were destroyed and 101 persons affected.

He further said that in Kiyawa, the disaster affected 108 persons and destroyed 228 rooms in Shuwarin village.

He added that the windstorm had rendered about 30 families homeless and destroyed several local silos containing assorted foodstuffs.

The executive secretary added that the agency was conducting an assessment of the damage caused by the windstorm in the affected communities with a view to assisting the victims.

By Muhammad Nasir Bashir

Most districts in Northern Uganda will continue to receive much rain for the period of June, July and August, experts have said.

Dr. Festus Luboyera, the Executive Director of Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA), said the major physical conditions that are likely to influence the weather patterns over Uganda and the rest of the east African region for the next three months would largely depend on the Indian Ocean.

He said the Neutral phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole, the El Nino-southern Oscillation which is currently neutral in an El Nino nor La Nina phase and the topographical features and large inland water bodies, would have a big influence in our rain patterns.

Dr. Luboyera was addressing the parliamentary committee on natural resources at Imperial Golf View Hotel in Entebbe.

The committee was on a familiarisation tour to understand how the authority is able to forecast and monitor weather in the country.

The MPs also toured the National Meteorological Training School to assess the school and the kind of training students receive in managing weather forecast and other climate change related issues.

The MPS were also taken to the Civil Aviation Authority control room and other towers to see how the authority manages aviation since no flight can land or take off without the authority’s clearance.

“The above considerations as well as detailed of the climatology of Uganda and scientific tools for climate change analysis have downscaled the forecast and there is an increased likelihood of near normal tending to above normal rainfall over the northern and some parts of eastern Uganda while the rest of the country is expected to experience normal to below normal rainfall punctuated with occasional light rainfalls conditions,” he said.

He said the districts of Bundibugyo, Ntoroko, Kabarole, Kyenjojo, Kyegegwa, Kamwenge, Masindi, Buliisa, Hoima and Kibaale would experience seasonal rainfall characterised by dry spells.

“The condition is expected to persist up to around mid-June when the dry conditions are expected to begin and continue until mid-July,” he said.

He added that Kisoro, Kabale, Rukungiri, Kanungu, Ntungamo, Mbarara, Kiruhura, Isingiro, Ibanda, Buhweju, Bushenyi, Mitooma, Sheema, Rubirizi and Kasese, which have been receiving seasonal rains since February, would start to experience dry spells by July.

He said they are able to promote, monitor weather and climate as well as provide weather predictions and advisories to government and other stakeholders.

He said the agency handles all climatological, hydro and agro-meteorological data which are crucial for research, study purposes, generate climate forecasts and advisories including climate change trends, projections and scenarios for different users.

MPs tours

The chairperson of the Parliamentary on Natural Resources Committee, Alex Byarugaba, said it is very important for the government to equip the authority since they also determine the weather in aviation management.

Byarugaba, who is also the MP for Isingiro South, said there is also need to harmonise with Uganda People’s Defence Force since they also have a forecast department.

Paul Isabirye, the Director, Station Networks and Observations at UNMA, said they designed , installed  and maintained weather stations of all categories, making and availing weather and other relevant observations at standardised temporal scales

“A robust and functional observational network, an efficient communication system for both real time and climatological data, skilled human resource and an adequate well facilitated have been put in place to cope with advancing technologies and operational standards,” he said.

Isabirye said they have they the capacity and infrastructure  to monitor both surface and space facilities, that include terrestrial and marine, manual synoptic (a branch of meteorology analysing data collected simultaneously over a wide region, for the purpose of weather forecasting), agrometeorological, hydrometeorological, rainfall stations, automatic weather stations, mobile vessels or buoys,  upper air sounding, radar , satellites , aircrafts and drones.

He said that the 12 synoptic stations were equipped with smart phones which improved timely transmission of weather data to the Centre and the Global Telecommunication System for international exchange and increased the level of automated weather observations across the Country by 20 AWSs.

“We have acquired the Automatic Meteorological Message Switching System (AMSS) which is very critical in having access to global weather data,” he said.

Challenges

He however said the most Agrometeorological and Hydrometeorological stations were not functional, making their work hard to determine whether accuracy.

In addition to inadequate maintenance infrastructure; calibration equipment, spare parts warehouse, Isabirye also said the authority was faced with a huge challenge of few staff to monitor major stations.

“Out of 156 approved structures, we only have 74 field technical staff to manage all the 45 major stations in the country. This gap has affected us so much and some of our equipment and accessories have been vandalized due to lack of supervision,” he told the MPS.

Demand for accuracy

Kabale Municipality MP, Andrew Aja Baryayanga, asked the authority to be more accurate in weather predictions, saying inaccuracies affect people especially the farmers.

“I have come to know that your prediction is at 75 percent. This has a negative effect on farmers who depend on your information for planting. Make it more accurate so that farmers are not misled and make loses as a result of unpredicted dry spell,” he said.

Patrick Nsamba, the Kasenda North MP, said the authority risks not getting money as they failed in attaining the certificate of gender and equality.

“You are doing so bad on gender issues as a result we will not provide you with more funds since you have failed in this crucial part of attaining and achieving gender equality aspect as it is required by law,” he said.

Godfrey Mujuni, the UNMA Data Centre Manager, said some of the equipment they are using was outdated and asked the committee to lobby for them more funds in order to get the latest technology.

“The current equipment we are using is of that of 1896 yet weather keeps on changing. This requires us to get the latest machines and equipment to do a better job,” he said.

By Hope Mafaranga