Disaster: Hectares of Food Crops submerged in Bagri Dam spillage

Several farmlands and homes have been flooded, leaving scores displaced as the spillage of the Bagre dam continues in the Upper East Region.

Some farmers are still counting their losses as their produce have been completely submerged by the floods.

Mr Louis Laal-Bador, the Acting Director of National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) for the Binduri District, said the farmers would have to wait for the water to subside before they get to their crops.

Speaking in an interview on Joy Fm, one farmer said, “On my farm, you can see that the water has taken a part of it and it continues coming. My farm is about 3 acres and the water has taken over one and half of it, and the maize is not yet matured so I cannot even harvest it,” the distressed farmer lamented.

Reports indicate most routes and to the various farms around the dam have all been submerged by the gushing waters as it rises with each passing minute.

The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO)  on August 23, 2018, launched what it termed as ‘Operation ThunderBolt 2018’ ahead of the spillage of the Bagre Dam from Burkina Faso which begins

According to SONABEL Authorities of Burkina Faso who are Managers of the Bagre Dam, the spillage has become necessary due to the 81 per cent increase in the water level.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Interior, Ambrose Dery, has directed the police to be on standby help the victims.

The spillage of the Dam has for some time now been an annual occurrence. The Spillage has in time past caused several losses in farm produce, displaced many residents living along the tributaries of the White Volta in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.

The Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso, when spilled flows into the tributaries of the White Volta River in the Northern and Upper East Regions and this together with heavy rains, floods and submerges farms and houses in the low lying areas.

In 2014, about ten people are reported dead in the Kumbungu District of the Northern region, following the spillage of the Dam.