Mudslide sends Sierra Leone reeling
After Ebola, nation to again hold mass funerals
FREETOWN, SI ERRA LEONE Family members of those buried in a devastating mudslide this week continued to search for missing loved ones Wednesday while others tried to identify bodies and prepared to bury hundreds of victims in this West African nation.
Using picks, hands and feet, residents worked alongside rescue workers, moving aside massive streams of red mud that slid down mountains due to heavy rains Monday, burying homes — with people sleeping inside — and dragging bodies with it.
They are among the estimated
400 people who have died so far, according to Sinneh Kamara, assistant officer at Sierra Leone’s Connaught hospital, which is serving as the city’s morgue.
Officials estimate that toll to double over the coming days. More than 600 people are missing more than 48 hours after the storm hit, the Red Cross said. The Interior Ministry estimates the number of missing at more than
1,000.
Memuna Kamara, 34, a small goods vendor, searched for her older brother Mohamed and his two sons for days. “I don’t know where to start,” she said. “(They are) all dead. I can’t even find their corpses.”
“Sierra Leone is gripped with sorrow,” she added.
The hospital had run out of space to put the corpses, officials said. Witnesses told USA TODAY they saw bodies left in the streets and in the water, while others were hastily covered with trash bags.
“Our facility has been overwhelmed, said Kamara. “It’s a disaster (the likes of which) I have never seen in my life.”
He said there is urgent need for rescue materials such as protective gear, ambulances and disinfectants.
In some areas of the city and nearby towns such as Regent, the mudslide and flooding swept away dozens of houses.
“Entire communities have been wiped out,” President Ernest Bai Koroma. “This is overwhelming us,” he added, pleading for international help.
The government is also begging family members to identify bodies for burial, due to the fear of outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhoid.
It’s not an easy task, admitted Kamara: Some of the corpses were horribly mutilated.
Kadiatu Turay, 28, a housewife, was away from home when the mudslide occurred.
“I lost my husband and two children to the mud slide at Regent,” she said. “My family and our house and property are all gone. I can’t even identify their remains.”
The government has declared three days of mourning and is making preparations for mass funerals. It is also trying to cope with the difficult rescue operations: some areas are inaccessi- ble, as roads and bridges collapse and muds make the hillsides too slippery to access. Meanwhile, government officials warned of more flooding and a possible second mudslide.
Aid workers said they’re trying to cope with the thousands made homeless as the rains continued.
“We are racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss,” Abdul Nasir, program coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told the Associated Press.
He estimated 9,000 people have been affected by the mud slide.
The tragedy strikes as Sierra Leone is still reeling from the aftershocks of a civil war and Ebola.
Sierra Leone ’s civil war claimed 50,000 lives between
1991 and 2002 and destroyed the country’s economy. In 2013, Ebola broke out and killed nearly
4,000 people and set its nascent recovery back years.
“The government was not ready for this,” said Ebun Strasser King, the ambassador to Senegal and Mauritania.
The country now has to cope with billions in damages from destroyed homes, crops and business, in addition to mourning its dead.
Foday Sannoh, 40, an Ebola survivor, lost seven family members to the disease. He lost his 16year-old son to the mudslide. “I was trying to forget about the past. Now my only source of hope — my son Sheku Sannoh — is no more,” he said in tears. “I don’t want to live anymore.”