Sierra Leone faced a terrible natural disaster, this Monday Morning. Heavy rains and flooding caused an enormous mudslide to sweep through the mountainside town of Regent. The death toll is being quoted as over 200 hundred people. It is said that the mudslide took place in the Early Hours of the morning, while most people were still asleep. The media has described heartbreaking scenes of people frantically digging through the mud with whatever they can find, to try and rescue others.
The mudslide
According to BBC News, the town of Regent, near Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, has experienced large amounts of rainfall and flooding of late.
In the early hours of Monday morning, these wet conditions led to the collapse of a hillside. The collapsing hill buried a considerable number of houses. A massive mudslide then rushed into town, burying people and knocking down houses as it went. Regent is just one of the places in Sierra Leone that struggle with poor drainage, according to ABC News. This poor drainage just made the slide all the worse.
Regent is also a town where many illegal houses have been constructed. These houses did not have the necessary structural strength to be able to withstand such a disaster.
Statements
In Sierra Leone, national television has show tragic scenes of people frantically digging in the mud, searching for loved ones.
According to USA Today, the military has also been employed to help search for people amidst the ruins. An accurate death count has not yet been determined, however, it is expected to be well over 200 people.
According to Sinneh Kamara, a coroner technician at the central morgue in Freetown, the morgue did not have enough space for all the bodies.
When interviewed, the Connaught Hospital mortuary, told media that there were so many bodies that they had simply begun laying the bodies on the floor of the morgue. ABC News reported that there were at least 205 bodies in the morgue, as of Monday morning. This count is sure to rise as more and more people are found. In fact, as media waited at the morgue, a number of grief-stricken families arrived, carrying their deceased loved ones in rice bags or anything else that they could find.
This is truly a terrible event. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have lost loved ones in the Sierra Leone mudslide. And we are holding thumbs for all those people still out there, battling the muddy conditions.
