Kids make up 105 of 300 killed in mudslides
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Concerns shifted yesterday to the estimated 600 people still missing and thousands made homeless in Sierra Leone by deadly floods in the capital, as it emerged that at least a third of those killed were children.
The United Nations said Tuesday that it was evaluating humanitarian needs in Sierra Leone, while the first Israeli aid packages were sent and Britain pledged its support.
Officials at Freetown’s central morgue said 105 of the more than 300 officially dead were children, and burials began on Tuesday for some of the bodies too mutilated to identify. An independent but unofficial morgue estimate put the toll at 400 dead.
President Ernest Bai Koroma fought back tears on Tuesday as he visited the devastated hilltop community of Regent, saying the scale of the challenge ahead was “overwhelming us.”
“Entire communities have been wiped out,” Koroma said. “We need urgent support now.”
The government of Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, has promised relief to what the Red Cross says is more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response center in Regent and registration centers to count those left on the streets.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York that the UN country team was “supporting national authorities in rescue operations, helping evacuate residents, providing medical assistance to the injured, registering survivors, and providing food rations, water and dignity kits to those affected.”
Logistical constraints
Speaking to the reporter at the mortuary at the Connaught Hospital, technician Mohamed Sinneh Kamara said his team lacked equipment to process and identify the bodies piling up.
“We have logistical constraints including a lack of gloves, PPE (personal protective equipment) and rain boots,” he said as families gathered to identify their loved ones’ bodies.
Mabinty Sesay’s family had gone to Regent for an all-night prayer session when the church was buried in the mudslide. “I have lost 13 of my family members but was only able to identify two,” she said at the morgue.
One woman collapsed after seeing her husband’s dead body among the piles of corpses, amid a powerful stench of decomposing flesh.
Adele Fox, national health coordinator for Sierra Leone for the charity Concern Worldwide, said the search for bodies continued but that survivors were facing difficult conditions.
“There is basic need for food, water, sanitation equipment and medical assistance. Since it is still the rainy season, further flooding is also a possibility,” she warned.
The sentiment among those in the disaster areas had shifted from shock and grief to anger at what is an annual problem in Freetown, though never before on this scale.
“There is some frustration over the regularity of flooding and destruction during the rainy season and its effects,” Fox said.
Society 4 Climate Change Communication, a local environment group, has called the tragedy a “wake-up call.”
Deforestation, a lack of urban planning and vulnerability to climate change had all played a part, it said.
The UN said contingency plans were being put into place in case of an outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhea, as dirty water stagnates in the streets.
Many homes are now without a water supply due to damage to a reservoir near Regent, said the Guma Valley Water Company.
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