Tolon (NR), May 14, GNA - A severe rainstorm on Monday night hit Tali, a community in the Tolon/Kumbungu District and its surrounding areas causing extensive damage to school buildings and private property running into thousands of Ghana cedis. The storm completely destroyed the Tali Area Council block, the Vocational Centre and the Assemblies of God Church building, ripping-off their entire roofing. The Church for instance collapsed causing several trees to be uprooted. About 60 individual homes were affected displacing more than 600 people. Electricity poles were also badly damaged, which disrupted power supply to the area.

In all thirteen schools were seriously affected and needed immediate government attention to enable the children to resume classes. Mr Wahab Suhiyini Wumbei, District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area who visited the destruction sites on Tuesday, appealed for external support to help the displaced persons and to repair the damaged schools for classes to resume. He said the Assembly had already finished disbursing its contingency fund due to an earlier rainstorm that hit some communities in the District, which also caused similar damages. He appealed to the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and NGOs to come to the aid of the Assembly with relief items to help the disaster victims.

Alhaji Mahmoud Harun, Northern Regional Director of NADMO described the disaster as serious and said it was beyond the assistance of the Regional office. The DCE later interacted with the victims and assured them of the government's determination to support them to alleviate their sufferings.