The start of the rainy season some months ago in Yaounde came with a series of surprise Floods where river banks overflowed within minutes of rainfall. Areas which never experienced floods were flooded and this left the inhabitants quite shocked.
On the 18th of February 2018 in the Biyemassi neighbourhood, a flood took place after what can be described as an averagely heavy rain of only about 20minutes. The major areas that were affected within the Biyemassi neighbourhood were Biyemassi-Lac, Tam-Tam and Juvence.
The flooding started after the rain had stopped as the river started increasing and then got into the houses of the inhabitants close to the river. Those who lived very close to the water bank had water up to their windows and the flood was so fast that they didn't have much time to save most of their property.
This was a Sunday afternoon and some people asked what would have happened if the flood had happened at night.
There are still serious threats of floods like this but the population is still trying to adapt to living along river beds by doing one or all of the following:
- Elevate walls on the river banks to block water from penetrating their homes
- Constructing very high foundations when building their houses
The thing is we forget that:
- All the dirt and plastics that we don't take time to properly dispose of contributes to creating floods.
- The poor drainage system of the town is another cause of floods.
- One of the effects of climate change is floods because of the increase in rainfall in certain areas. And this also contributes to the floods affecting the inhabitants of Yaounde.
- Constructing houses around a river bed affects its flow and therefore encourage floods. So living very close to river beds increases your chances of being a victim of floods.
