Flooding in north-eastern Ghana in September killed at least six people and affected over 260,000, according to the Government. Thousands of homes were destroyed and the flooding also caused major bridges to collapse and destroyed crops. Following the deployment of a UN assessment and coordination group, a MapAction team deployed to support them from Tamale in northern Ghana.

The MapAction team departed from the UK within 24 hours of receiving a request from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). At the time of deployment, a UN official commented: "The rains are set to continue and we are really concerned because a lot of people are homeless and infectious diseases could emerge". MapAction provided mapping support to national and international agencies and NGOs responding to the emergency, to ensure that relief assistance was directed to the areas of most need, across a very large affected area.

Team leader Philip Moore has recent experience of a flood emergency, having returned from a mission in Pakistan within the past few weeks. Kirsty Ferris, the team logistician and on her first emergency deployment with MapAction, took charge of checking and packing the specialist equipment required for operations in the west African interior: this included the latest generation portable satellite data communications equipment to ensure the team's mapped information could be transmitted rapidly back to Accra and to the world at large.

Go to the Map Catalogue for Ghana deployment.