The National Emergency Management Agency has disclosed that over 1500 Students of Usman Danfodio University Sokoto were successfully evacuated after a devastating flood that submerged roads and bridges leading to the campus and thereby cutting off the university community from the rest of the state.

 
The acting Director General of the agency, Dr. Charles Agbo disclosed this while visiting the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji and the governor of the state, Alhaji Aliyu Magataka after reassessing the affected sites of the flood.
 
The NEMA boss while pointing out that motorised boats and canoes were leased to ferry students from the university to safety observed that the massive flood in the state that has rendered more ten thousand people homeless, heavily affected nine local government areas including Rabah, Wurno, Kware, Silame, Wamakko, Shagari, Tambuwal, Sabon Birni, Sokoto North and Sokoto South.
 
He said that due to the gravity of the flooding Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps have been established at Goronyo, Isa and Gada where NEMA has despatched truckloads of relief materials to the victims. He said the items include food items, toiletries, beddings and beverages worth millions of Naira.
 
Dr, Agbo acknowledge the cooperation and supports of the government for facilitating the rescue operation and providing safety camps for the victims, said the distributed items are part of palliative measures to address the immediate needs of the victims in the camps as due assessment is being done to determine appropriate and commensurate interventions across the state.
 
The Sultan while commending the NEMA for the promptness in responding to the incidents urged the federal government to adequate equipped the agency with rescue facilities like more helicopters and speed boats.
 
The governor of the state Alhaji Aliyu Magataka Wamako while commending the NEMA’s team in the rescue exercise and in providing relief materials said the state needs supports from the federal government in addressing some of the problems, especially in reconstructing some of the roads and bridges that collapsed.
 
It could be recalled that a team of experienced Search and Rescue Officers were despatched from NEMA’s zonal office in Kaduna and Abuja headquarters to Sokoto on Sallah Day (September 10, 2010) immediately after receiving a distress call from Sokoto State Emergency Relief Agency (SERA). The team establish a ferry shuttle service at various entry points along the Kware-Dundaye River Rima Stretch in view of the collapsed bridges hitherto enabling motor transport. It is on record that whenever the spill way of the Goronyo Dam developed problems, large volumes of water escaped within a relatively short period of time, thus wreaking havoc along its path.