PICS: Sierra Leone reels after mudslide leaves hundreds dead

Published Aug 15, 2017

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Freetown - Rescue workers have recovered

270 bodies so far from a mudslide in the outskirts of Sierra

Leone's capital Freetown, the mayor said on Tuesday, as rescue

operations continued and morgues struggled to find space for all

the dead. 

President Ernest Bai Koroma urged residents of Regent and

other flooded areas around Freetown to evacuate immediately so

that military personnel and other rescue workers could continue

to search for survivors that might be buried underneath debris.

Dozens of houses were covered in mud when a mountainside

collapsed in the town of Regent on Monday morning, one of the

deadliest natural disasters in Africa in recent years.

"We have a total of 270 corpses which we are now preparing

for burial," Freetown mayor Sam Gibson told reporters outside

city hall.

Bodies have continued to arrive at the city's central

morgue. Corpses are lying on the floor and on the ground outside

because the morgue is overloaded, a Reuters witness said.

"Our problem here is space. We are trying to separate,

quantify, and examine quickly and then we will issue death

certificates before the burial," said Owiz Koroma, head of the

morgue.

He did not have an updated death toll but said: "It's in the

hundreds, hundreds!"

FEAR OF DISEASE

Sierra Red Cross Society spokesman Abu Bakarr Tarawallie

said by phone he estimated that at least 3,000 people were

homeless and in need of shelter, medical assistance and food.

The Red Cross said another 600 were missing.

"We are also fearful of outbreaks of diseases such as

cholera and typhoid," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation

from Freetown. "We can only hope that this does not happen."

Contaminated water and water-logging often lead to

potentially deadly diseases like cholera and diarrhoea after

floods and mudslides.

Crowds of people gathered, waiting for news of missing

family members.

"I've been looking for my aunt and her two children, but so

far no word about them," said Mohamed Jalloh, crying. He said he

feared the worst.

President Koroma said in a television address on Monday

evening that rescue centres had been set up around the capital

to register and assist victims.

Bulldozers dug through mud and rubble at the foot of Mount

Sugar Loaf, where many residents had been asleep when part of

the mountainside collapsed. The government said a number of

illegal buildings had been erected in the area.

Reuters

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