Ghana’s rain-soaked year is continually being affirmed by nature. One more expression of the much-talked theme of climate change that has gripped the world
On Friday, 22 September 2023, Ghana’s capital Accra was thrashed by another downpour that lasted at least two hours.
The rainfall pattern in the West African country fits the bookmaker’s call. The Ghana Meteorological Agency announced at the start of the year that Ghana should prepare for one of its wettest seasons.
Often, the rains had mixed bags. It is distasteful to the homeless and those who conduct operations in the open air. It has also washed away roads, in some cases collapsed bridges, and cocooned settlements built in waterways and near wetlands.
Rains have also exposed the carelessness in the Ghanaian system with exposed electrical wirings electrocuting unsuspecting passers-by and flash waters sweeping people away. Children have been the worst victims. Urban inundations are usually the result of misuse of drainage systems which have become receptacles for solid waste.
On June 3rd, 2015, Ghana experienced prolonged cats and dogs of rainfall that triggered a fire outbreak.
Fire and water are not paired for a symbiotic co-existence, except when either is needed for cookery or to douse a flame. However, the June 3rd phenomena caused the unthinkable at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra. The rains had induced a massive fire at a fuel depot, clutching people between enlarging floods and fires.
When the chirps came down, the fallouts were unprecedented in national history. Scores of deaths and the survivors were badly burnt as to necessitate high-end plastic surgeries. The victims never had their normal lives back, despite compensation by the state.
On the flip side, the rains are a boon to agriculture. It remains to be seen whether farmers are scientifically guided to avoid mismatching planting sessions with unpredictable weather patterns.
Already, farmers on the Afram Plains straddling Eastern and Ashanti regions of Ghana have sounded the alarm bells on the devastation caused to the agricultural cycle in the face of weather uncertainties. If the situation is managed properly, the Pluvial could be the harbinger of good agricultural harvests with positive implications on the pricing of food items.
The times are also very favorable for hydroelectric energy. The water levels of all such dams will increase and that is a determinant of how much power to emanate from that source.
Percolation of water in the soil will lead to improved groundwater levels as well. This source of water has come under question lately, as minerals used at locations where rocks are blasted, and gold is mined, seep into the water table of groundwater making it toxic and unsafe.
The other dimension of it is the tickling of seasonal demand that promotes the sale of umbrellas. Car washing bays witness dwindling fortunes.
In the wake of increased rainfall is cold weather conditions that certainly frigid mosquitoes. The irony is that the mosquito thrives on stagnant water, thus standing the chance to multiply to catch humans on the wrong foot once the vermilion patches in the clouds announce the onset of sunshine.
Still, mankind in this part of the world is not left off the hook. The practice of open defecation would have the crowning moment as fecal matter is washed downstream and into residential compounds. Cholera outbreak. What goes around, comes around.
