Flood Sweeps Away UNICAL Works Director
Disturbing news from Calabar indicates that a director in the Department of Works in the University of Calabar, Mr Friday Sampson, was Monday night swept away by flood in the presence of his family members.
Facts emerged that Sampson, along with his son, Ime, had driven to the U J Esuene Stadium to pick his wife who returned from Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, on Monday evening during a torrential down.
On his way back, there was a traffic jam, and in order to find out what was causing the gridlock, he went out of his vehicle and accidentally stepped into a gulley along IBB Way which swept him off his feet and consumed before sweeping him away while his wife and the 18-year-old Ime shouted helplessly.
Search parties mounted by the family and friends to fish out the body yielded no result after two days of frantic search.
Patience Sampson, the first daughter of the man, said: “The family was coming back from the stadium where he went to pick our mother who came back from Uyo and along IBB Way, there was a hold up and my father blared and blared his horn but the car in front did not moves. so he stepped out to find out what was going on and mistakenly stepped into the gutter and was carried away.”
“The rain was falling very heavily and the flood was rapid so my mother and younger brother could not do anything to rescue him while he was being carried away by the flood,” she said.
Patience said the men of the Cross River State Fire Service were contacted to help fish out the man that night but all efforts, throughout Tuesday and Wednesday morning have not yielded any result.The Information Officer with the University of Calabar, Mr Henry Eyo, reportedly said the matter had not been officially reported to the school authorities, but that he heard that somebody like that had died.
