The Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), has listed 16 Local government areas (LGAs) in Rivers State that will suffer massive flooding.

The South-South Zonal Head of NEMA, Walson Ibarakumo disclosed this while speaking to the media in Port Harcourt, the Rivers capital.

According to NEMA, Rivers State has 23 Local government areas.

Ibarakumo while charging authorities of the listed Local government area to put strategies in place to manage the situation, said the LGAs are high risk areas where the flood may cause damages.

He said, “From the annual flood outlook 2020, the highly probable flood risk areas are Degema, Asari-Toru and Akuku-Toru. Then the probable flood risk areas are; Ahaoda-East, Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni, Oyigbo, Andoni, Etche, Ogu-Bolo, Ahaoda-West, Port Harcourt, Obio-Akpor, Gokana, Tai, Khana and Okrika Local government.

“Those are the local government areas we are focusing on for preparedness activities. What we have done is to tell the communities to prepare. And when we say prepare, we mean that they should identify higher grounds.

“As NEMA, we have started to sensitise members of those communities and we have also started mapping the higher grounds so that when the flood comes they will not be inundated.

Concluding, Walson Ibarakumo of NEMA says, “Flood response and recovery programmes are not only meant for the federal government. Communities, local and state governments are also part of it,” he said.