An eight-year-old boy, identified as Chinwe, has been killed when a surging flood flushed him into deep erosion.
The incident happened late on Wednesday behind the school of Nursing, Nkpor in the Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State.
It was gathered that a combination of surging floods from the Immaculate Hearts Sisters Convent and Our Ladies Industrial Centre in Nkpor during rainfall swept the boy into the gully.
City Round gathered that the corpse was recovered the next day from about half a kilometre away from the spot where he plunged, with one of his hands broken.
The victim, who is a son of a vulcaniser in the area, was said to be returning from a journey with his mother during a rainfall when the incident happened.
It was gathered that the boy, while approaching the gully from where he and his mother wanted to pass through to their home, ran faster than his mother, prompting her to shout for help.
His mother’s shouts and calls for him to turn back fell on deaf ears, as he continued running until he reached the narrow part of the gully.
It was gathered that in an attempt to jump over the gully, the surging flood swept his feet off and he plunged into it.
Some youths in the area were said to have prevented his mother with a baby strapped to her back in her attempt to jump into the gully to search for her son. The youth were said to have jumped into the gully in search of the victim but could not see him.
Eyewitnesses said that it was only the next morning that his corpse with one hand broken was found in the other side of the gully about a kilometre away from the spot where he plunged.
The bereaved mother, who could barely talk to our correspondent about the incident, hired a vehicle which conveyed the corpse from Nkpor to their hometown.
People in the area blamed the state government for allowing the gully to expand from a minor hole to a big gully over the years instead of constructing a ring or box culvert to link the road to the streets.
A community member and ex-Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Idemili branch, Mr Samuel Chukwukelu, said successive governments in the state had abandoned the community because of the poor state of the roads.
Chukwukelu said the contractor who was awarded the road project from Our Ladies Road through Uke Street to Attah Road linking Nkpor/Umuoji Road, abandoned the project half way at the particular erosion prone area.
“The government neglected the Nkpor community in terms of developmental programmes. The death of the boy was unwarranted and unfortunate. If successive governments had done the needful, the incident would not have occurred,” he said.
Contacted, the state police spokesman, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, said the report had yet to be brought to his attention as of the time of filing the report.
