By Kabs Kanu
Sierra Leone’s disaster-prone capital city, Freetown , was at the centre of another massive tragedy yesterday when heavy and unrelenting torrential rains , which had been flooding the city for the past two weeks, resulted in mudslide that took lives and destroyed homes .
At least six people, including an infant, were killed at Looking Town in the East End of Freetown in this latest environmental disaster in the Sierra Leone capital, where forests that once protected the soil have been hacked away to accommodate new buildings and residents have been building houses in waterways in a dangerous expansion up the hills and ravines of the city. The mudslide swept away some dwellings and left at least one or two other buildings hanging precariously in the precipice.
Though this diaster cannot be compared in any way to the August 14 2017 mudslide which killed thousands of city dwellers, it was still a haunting reminder that Freetown is no longer safe during the rainy season and it was a pitiful sight to see bodies that had been plucked from the sludge being carried away to the Rokupa Government Hospital morgue on stretchers.
From pictures and video clips of the flooding , it was still a major disaster.
THE DISASTER SITE AT LOOKING TOWN
VOLUNTEERS DIGGING OUT THE DEAD
According to reports by citizen journalists on social media, two houses were swept away by the landslide in Looking Town ,while at Tengbeh Town, Kanikay and kaningo, homes were submerged in water and roadways became flowing rivers. Many residents were trapped in a home at Brook Street where a tree fell on the building .They were rescued by volunteers. There were even threats of electocution as some electric poles were brought down at Circular Road and and some other parts of the city, while residents of a home at Leicester were counting themselves lucky that they survived when their house collapsed.
Dead body being carried away on a stretcher
THIS WAS THE UPDATE RECEIVED FROM THE NATIONAL SITUATION ROOM AT THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL SECURITY-FREETOWN
