Winds cause immense damage in Kumbo

By Livinus Tal Bam
The government’s tradition to detect high risk zones in Douala, Buea, Yaounde and other towns in Cameroon will soon reach all the parts of the country. No place seems to be safe from the destruction caused by natural disasters such as floods, volcanic eruptions, wind and other forces.

Kumbo has recently experienced devastating winds which destroyed a number of places. A fierce passing wind on the night of April 1, took the inhabitants of Kumbo unawares, as it caused an unexpected destruction. The principal areas where the impact was felt the most included the premises of the Government Bilingual School (GBHS), the Presbyterian Comprehensive High School (PCHS), and the new Catholic Pastoral Centre. In GBHS Kumbo, the wind completely took off the roofs of some six classrooms, the Senior Discipline Master’s office and the school canteen while in PCHS Kumbo the roofs of two classrooms were also taken off with accompanying damage to contend with. Books and other valuable documents in the discipline master’s office are said to have been completely damaged in GBHS due to the rains that night.

As schools will be resuming on the 16th of April, the school authorities and the PTAs of the various schools have a rock-climbing task ahead of them. It is clear that something must be done and fast too to ensure that before schools get back, the various classes destroyed should have been kept back in their initial good shapes and even better. If this is not done therefore, the students who studied in these classes for the first and second term will have a lot of inconveniences to crown their academic year during the third term. When we visited GBHS Kumbo to see what the school authority has been doing to redress this mal situation, it was found out that the students of the destroyed classes will not suffer much when schools resume on April 16, thanks to the smart PTA of the school who had foreseen the future and build some additional classes. Although these classes are not yet complete, the students will be compel to study in them while waiting for government’s reaction to the disaster.

The school administration according to the day watch man of GBHS, tried and tidied the campus off the dangerous weapons thrown by the wind and also reported the matter to the Divisional delegation of secondary schools Bui and the senior divisional officer for to channel it to the government for onward reaction to reconstruct the structures. In the main time, other business persons in the town and family heads who also fell victim to the fierce wind are also leaving no stone unturned to make sure that goods and families are protected from the rain.
No human loss were recorded. If high risk zones were to be carved out in Kumbo town, will GBHS Kumbo, PCHS Kumbo and the new Catholic Pastoral Centre be amongst the places? These places whose sites are not as high as would be blamed for exposure to the wind were instead the ones destroyed. One could not have imagined in Kumbo that these places can ever be affected by wind. This is why the people have concluded that there is a kind of mysticism in the destruction of these places.