800 farmers suffer extensive crop loss after hailstorm wreaks havoc across 6 villages, Uganda
More than 800 farmers in Ugandan Buwunga Sub-county suffered extensive crop loss after severe storm accompanied by strong winds and huge amounts of hail swept over six villages on September 15, 2018.
According to Daily Monitor, residents said the storm began at about 17:00 local time, destroying plantations of rice, watermelon, cassava, maize, beans, groundnuts, soybeans and bananas among others. When their reporter visited the affected villages 17 hours later, ice pellets were still visible on the ground.
"All my hopes are gone! The hailstorms have taken me to zero and I don’t know where I will get food," one of the farmers said.
Another farmer whose 2.4 ha (6 acres) of watermelon were destroyed, said he used a bank loan to set up the plantation and was worried about repayment.
"I was expecting a bumpy harvest in October to enable me to repay the loan but the whole garden is totally destroyed," he said.
Local authorities said that about 800 farmers were affected, noting that the damage was enormous and appealed to the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness to intervene.
About 10 houses were also destroyed by the rain, so local authorities requested the government to send seeds to the affected people. "It should also assist those whose houses were destroyed," they said.
Featured image credit: NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP/VIIRS. Acquired: September 15, 2018.
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