Flood Sweeps Away Apprentice Trader In Onitsha

n apprentice teenage trader, who fell into a water channel while trying to flee from heavy downpour has been reportedly swept away by flash flood at the Ochanja Market round-about axis in Onitsha, the commercial nerve center of Anambra state.

Orient Weekend gathered that the heavy down pour of that Tuesday afternoon caused flooding, which submerged the entire vicinity. According to a witness, trouble started for the teenage boy met his untimely death in his desperate bid to escape from the shop where he was trapped during the heavy rainfall at about 4.30pm that fateful day.


“As he stepped on the plank that was used to cross the gutter, the plank served as bridge or link between the shop and the road, it (the plank) broke and he fell into the deep gutter and was washed away by the speeding flood into Nwangene River.

Our correspondent was informed that efforts to rescue the boy by sympathisers failed. “Some sympathisers defied the rain and put some planks and other heavy objects into the gutter to cause obstruction and possibly stop the body of the boy from being swept down into the river, but he was not seen again, ”the source said.

He further disclosed that a search party that composed of traders and some motorists who went up to Nwangene river to know if they would recover the corpse later returned empty handed. It was gathered that the development caused heavy traffic grid-lock for over two hours.

Efforts made to get the master trader to the boy proved abortive as his identity was not immediately ascertained; but a trader, who claimed the victim was an apprentice trader, could not give further detail.

Another trader, who pleaded anonymity, however, told Orient Weekend that, “some years ego, similar development occurred in same place and it has reoccurred again.

“We tried to know if we could get the dead body; but to no avail. I mercy for the boy, who I did not know what he was pursuing that made him to try to defy the heavy rainfall that brought this flood that submerged the road and shops and finally led to his death.

“He would have allowed the rain to subside before stepping out of the shop and who knew if he sustained injury when he fell in the flood to carry him away without any resistance.”

As at the time of filling this report, his corpse has not been recovered.