June pluvial at Accra – Napoleon Ato Kittoe writes 

Our lack of preparedness for disasters can be likened to the way people walk with their heads bowed to their mobile phone screens, oblivious to their surroundings 24/7. The day the clouds turn pink, they will not notice until the strange rain, in any of the shades of red, falls on them. Personally, I have not witnessed pain on the scale that Accra experienced eleven years ago. Yet another June is here, and it brings that mid-year rude awakening. Within the thirty days of that month, Ghana received rain on at least twenty days. On the night of June 28, the rains began again, and there was no let-up until well after midday the following day.

Imagination and reality collided in that storm, and our fears were confirmed by the destruction left behind. Most parts of the city were inundated to the height of an adult. That was what we saw in the harrowing footage shared on social media. Properties were swept away, and the official register recorded a number of untimely deaths. The media failed to report on the long aftermath of rains to affirm or refute claims some people were swept away by flash waters. Six months after that, what were the feelings of affected families? The media did us a disservice by going quiet on the likely long search for those whose bodies were not recovered. That would have made an impact.

Transportation was another casualty. The bitumen surfaces of roads were washed away, and ongoing road construction stalled as water clogged the sites. This caused delays in project execution. Commerce also came to a halt as traders stayed indoors.

There are both artificial and natural causes behind these changing weather patterns. A major human factor is the habit of choking gutters with solid waste, which blocks the passage of water. Coupled with climate change, this demands a shift in attitude if we are to reverse the trend. Bush burning and tree felling are also contributors. The rapid loss of the nation’s vegetative cover, especially in the South of Ghana, is largely driven by illegal mining. Together, these factors produce a volatile mix of climatic conditions.

Ghana’s most alarming episode of rainfall may still be June 3, 2015, when two irreconcilable disasters struck at once: flooding and a fire outbreak at a fuel depot. The twin catastrophe drowned and burnt scores of people.

The health risks are just as real. All manner of waste, including liquid waste, is washed into residential areas during heavy rains. This triggers concerns over water-related diseases such as leptospirosis, typhoid, diphtheria, and cholera.

Ghana has also failed to turn floodwaters into a gain. The country makes noise over flooding in the North anytime Burkina Faso opens the Bagre Dam. In 2023, managers of the Akosombo Dam opened the spillways, negatively affecting towns in the natural path of the water. Residents living near Weija in Accra have had to contend with mass inundation anytime spillage occurs at the dam located there. More recently, in 2026, the town of Samreboi in the Western Region was completely overwhelmed by water in situations many ascribe to illegal mining. Meanwhile, Ghana has not been able to harvest water even for agricultural purposes, yet complains about the high cost of constructing dams to feed croplands. Until water is treated like infrastructure, June will keep drowning us.