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Houses
were submerged when the hillside collapsed on Monday. EPA
|
Rescue workers have so
far recovered 270 bodies from the mudslide on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's
capital Freetown, the mayor has said, Reuters news agency reports.
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The
mudslide destroyed homes on the foot of Sugar Loaf mountain. EPA
|
Rescue
operations were continuing, Sam Gibson added.
Sierra
Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has addressed the nation following the
devastating mudslide which has claimed more than 300 lives in the capital,
Freetown.
In
the televised address, he said:
Our nation has once again been gripped by grief. Many of our
compatriots have lost their lives, many more have been gravely injured and
billions of Leones' worth of property destroyed in the flooding and landslides
that swept across some parts of our city.
Every single family, every single ethnic group, every single
region is either directly or indirectly affected by this disaster.
Fellow civilians, this tragedy of great magnitude has once again
challenged us to come together, to stand by each other and to help one another.
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EPA
|
After
stopping during the hours of darkness, rescue and recovery efforts are resuming
in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, following a devastating mudslide and
floods which killed more than 300 people.
Sia
Lajaku Williams is head of programmes in Sierra Leone for the charity Street
Child which is trying to provide support for the survivors.
Speaking
to the BBC, she said people were still in shock and trying to find their loved
ones:
Right now, some are trying to go the national stadium; others
are at the response centre that the government has set up and the government is
encouraging people to go to this centre.
Some people are not even thinking of where to go. They're just looking for their loved ones and crying and wailing. And there was a huge crowd at the main government hospital morgue which was also overcrowded with corpses."
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