Ongoing efforts to address the increasing flood incidents across the country gained a boost on Thursday as the Director General National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mrs Zubaida Umar launched the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at the headquarters in Abuja.

The Emergency Operations Centre was set up to monitor and coordinate the timely deployment of resources for search and rescue in support of the zonal, territorial offices nationwide.

Speaking during the pivotal meeting of management and Zonal Directors, the NEMA boss underscored the need to strengthen flood response and operational readiness of the Agency to disasters in the country.

The Stakeholders also reviewed the status of flood situation in the country and response carried out so far as well as commitment by the stakeholders especially the State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) to incidents in their own areas.

In her remarks, Mrs. Umar directed the Zonal Directors on the need to strengthen synergy with the SEMAs in prepositioning rescue equipment and facilities available for immediate deployment in the event of flood in their various areas of responsibilities and report same to the Emergency Coordination Centre that has been opened at NEMA Headquarters in Abuja.

Moreover, she harped on the imperatives for timely response to save lives and property, adding that rapid assessments must also be conducted of flood incidents to determine any further action to be taken towards supporting the affected persons.

In addition, the Director General said the Zonal Directors should leverage on existing partnership with stakeholders, particularly the Military to request for supports of their Disaster Response Units (DRUs) to deploy necessary resources and equipment for search and rescue operations.

In the same vein, Mrs. Umar also held an interactive meeting with all NEMA staff in Abuja where she tasked the Technical Officers to brace-up for possible deployment across the states to beef-up response interventions to overwhelming flood incidents.

Recalled that the Agency, in furtherance of its proactive flood risk management, had activated all Zonal, Territorial and Operation offices of the Agency nationwide to work with the State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) within their area of responsibilities to carry out rescue operations and conduct assessment of the situation.

Consequent on the activation, NEMA Search and Rescue officers in the zones were deployed across the states with flood incidents where they have been supporting in coordination of rescue operations with SEMAs and other stakeholders.

With increasing flood incidents, the Director General National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mrs. Zubaida Umar further inaugurated Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at the headquarters in Abuja to monitor and coordinate timely deployment of resources for search and rescue in support of the zonal, territorial offices nationwide.

In addition to the EOC, the DG NEMA also activated the Situation Room at NEMA headquarters in Abuja for flood data collection, processing and dissemination of authentic information from incidents sites.

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