By Akanimo Sampson
Over 1,600 students of the 61-year-old Fr. Joseph Memorial High School (FJMHS) in Aguleri, Anambra East Local Government Area of Anambra State, have been sacked by a devastating windstorm.
The dare-devil windstorm wrecked 14 buildings and damaged 15 electric poles in the school.
The affected buildings include administration block, classroom blocks, kitchen, hostel block and pavilion as well as electric poles within the school which is owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha.
The school is also one of the biggest and effective camps for people displaced by flooding on yearly bases.
Principal of the school, Rev. Fr Izuu Okoye, says the disaster of nature has displaced the boarding and learning environment of the students.
Okoye said electricity supply in the school has been cut off due to the fallen poles thus making water supply impossible in the premises.
The principal who said there was no loss of life, blamed the level of destruction which also the affected surrounding environment on the absence of trees which should work as windbreaker.
He said the management was in a dilemma of resettling the learning environment to ensure that over 1,600 students of the school commence internal examination on April 15.
“It happened on Saturday, April 10, was the same day our students returned from Easter break, around 8:30 pm in the evening, the storm removed the roof of a pavilion structure and slammed it on others.
“Our examination hall block, a storey building, all collapsed, our library was destroyed, some buildings in our staff quarters were also destroyed save for a few, precisely on three two buildings were spared”, he said.
The principal is calling for speedy assistance from the Federal and the state government to enable the school get back on track.
Meanwhile, the Old Boys Association of the school has described the incident as a natural disaster beyond what an ordinary windstorm would do.
President of FJMHS Old Boys Association, Dr Emman Udeakpeh, says the school community is still in deep shock but was making frantic efforts to ensure that normal academic atmosphere returned quickly.
According to him, ‘’it looked like a tornado, the destruction is much and we need the efforts of everybody to fix the destruction because the school and the church cannot do it on their own.
“For us the old boys, it is a trying moment and emergency situation but we are doing our best to ensure normalcy returns.
“We advise that people go into massive tree planting to serve our environment, this will help to reduce the effect of this type of storm.“
National Emergency Management Agency and Anambra State Emergency Management Agency have jointly visited the school to assess the level of damage.
