Freetown - Rescue workers have recovered
nearly 400 bodies from a mudslide in the outskirts of Sierra
Leone's capital Freetown, the chief coroner said on Tuesday, as
morgues struggled to find space for all the dead.
Dozens of houses were buried when a mountainside collapsed
in the town of Regent on Monday morning - one of the deadliest
natural disasters in Africa in recent years.
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 who might be buried underneath debris.
"As the search continues, we have collected nearly 400
bodies - but we anticipate more than 500," chief coroner Seneh
Dumbuya told Reuters.
Hundreds of other people are missing, aid agencies said.
Bodies continued to arrive at Freetown's overwhelmed central
morgue on Tuesday. Corpses were lying on the floor and on the
ground outside for lack of room, 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, who also estimated the death toll to be in the hundreds.
To relieve pressure on the morgue, authorities and aid
agencies were preparing to bury the bodies in four different
cemeteries across Freetown, said Idalia Amaya, an emergency
response coordinator for Catholic Relief Services.
The burials are expected to take place on Thursday,
government spokesman Cornelius Deveaux said.
Medecins Sans Frontieres is providing hundreds of body bags
to authorities that the medical charity kept in Sierra Leone
after the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak which killed 4 000 people in
the former British colony.
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 a tearful Mohamed Jalloh. 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.