More than 200 bodies have been brought to a morgue in Sierra Leone’s capital following heavy flooding and mudslides, officials said.
Sinneh Kamara, a coroner technician at the Connaught Hospital mortuary in Freetown, told the national broadcaster that the number of corpses brought in has overwhelmed the facility.
Footage on television showed family members digging through mud in a desperate bid to free their loved ones (Society 4/AP)
He told the Sierra Leone National Broadcasting Corp that bodies were on the floor of the morgue.
Mr Kamara also called on the health department to deploy more ambulances, saying his mortuary only has four.
The mudslides hit homes in the capital Freetown where poor drainage exacerbated the situation (Society 4/AP)
Footage on television showed family members digging through mud in a desperate bid to free their loved ones.
Many of the impoverished areas of Sierra Leone’s capital are close to sea level and have poor drainage systems, exacerbating flooding during the West African country’s rainy season.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article