Hundreds of people have died from a mudslide that occurred near Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, the country’s vice president has said.
The incident happened when a hillside in the Regent area of Freetown collapsed Monday morning, sending mud sliding down and covering houses where people were sleeping.
“It’s likely that hundreds are lying dead underneath the rubble,” Vice President Victor Foh told Reuters. “The disaster is so serious that I myself feel broken.”
He mentioned that authorities were trying to cordon off the area and evacuate people.
Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the mudslide in Sierra Leone. pic.twitter.com/0mi16Swq18
— The Invisible Man (@invisibleman_17) August 14, 2017
An official at a mortuary in Freetown, Sinneh Kamara told the national broadcaster that more than 200 bodies have been brought in and were being stored on the morgue’s floor since the facility did not have capacity for all the corpses.
The mudslide followed heavy rains in Sierra Leone, a poor country where the infrastructure was already devastated by the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, which killed almost 4,000 people in the country and more than 11,000 people in total.
Heartbreaking images of the aftermath of the landslide are being shared online.
Here are some of the images. Viewer Discretion strongly advised.
