By Sah Terence Animbom
Inhabitants of Bamenda witnessed a scary stormy night on Friday May 3, 2019 that left many stranded. It had rained heavily and nonstop between 5 and 8:30pm that caused many who were still out of their homes to violate curfew hours due to lack of transportation means to get home. Many were forced to go home under the rains while others simply waited, hoping the rain will give them a chance to go home.
Only subsiding at about 8:30pm and beginning with a strong breeze that became a storm 30 minutes after, people seized the moment to rush home with many getting home after curfew time in the North West region. The storm deprived most households of sleep as trees, roofs and plantain stems were brought down.
The roof of a two classroom block was brought down at Big Mankon and part of the roof at ST Frederick’s Comprehensive High School Bamenda also taken off. At Old Town Bamenda, the transmission pole of Rush FM radio came crashing on roof tops as locals feared the unknown. Around Fish Pond hill towards Bamenda food market, sheets of zinc were taken off from about 3 buildings exposing business ware to destruction by the rain. A household was completely deprived of sleep at Azire Old Church as their roof was completely taken off by the storm.
Some quarters have been deprived of electricity as three high tension poles were brought down by the storm at Ngomgham neighborhood around Ntarinkon and another at Mulang quarter.
Farmers have had the highest rate of destruction as close to 80% of farms around Bamenda have had their crops leveled to the ground. Wirba, a farmer in Bambui laments the destruction caused by the storm in his yam farm in Bambui. “I spent hours on my farm this morning trying to raise my fallen yam stems to new stakes as the old ones were all destroyed and all the yams wrapped against each other. I even ended up just destroying some because the yams had entangled too much to be redirected” he said.
Inhabitants of Bamenda say they have not seen such a heavy and very destructive storm in a very long time. “What marvels me is that the destruction was all over and within such a short time because this storm only lasted from about 9pm to 11 or 11:30pm”, mami Chi, an old woman of about 80 told The Sun while trying to raise her fattened maize stems.
Experts are yet to make a statement on the possible causes of such a storm but many fear there could be an even more dangerous one in the future as many are yet to come to terms with the many revolutionary climatic changes in the North West region as well as Cameroon.