A mudslide caused by heavy rainfall in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone has claimed lives of 312 people on Monday according to the Red Cross.
The numbers of corpse are said to be beyond the capacity of the emergency services and the central morgue in the city is full with majority of children and women.
The rainfall is said to have affected the outskirts cities of Guma in Regent and Martema badly. The Office National Security (ONS) has issued warning to residents to avoid flooded areas.
The mudslide started a heavy down pour that caused the collapse of a hillside as early as 6.00am local time. Majority of the houses were heavily covered in mud while residents trapped indoors.
The spoke spokesperson of Red Cross International in Sierra Leone Patrick Massaquoi said at least 312 people were killed and more than 2,000 left homeless when a mudslide and heavy flooding hit the capital, Freetown, on Monday leaving hospitals unable to cope.
Reports from eye witnesses said main roads were littered with corpses as muds took over while some residents forced their ways through water rising up to chest level in rivers of mud.
Local media reports also said that a section of a hill in the Regent area of the city had partially collapsed.
Freetown, a coastal city with a population of 1.2million people witnessed yearly flood during rainy seasons. Residents were not expecting major destructive rain until early September. A similar flooding in 2015 killed a dozen people with thousands homeless.
The small West Africa state of Sierra Leone has suffered outbreak of Ebola that claimed over 4000 lives and devastating economic consequences in 2014 and yet to fully recover from that disaster. According to United Nations Development Programme 60 percent of Sierra Leone people live below poverty line.
Kindly follow us on twitter:@AfricanVoice2
