The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
The Sierra Leone meteorological department did not issue any warning ahead of the torrential rains to hasten evacuation from the disaster zones, AFP’s correspondent based in Freetown said.
Israel’s foreign ministry said it would provide “assistance immediately and in every way possible” including clean water, medicines, blankets, while EU Commissioner Christos Stylianides said the European Union “stands ready to help”, without elaborating.
– Annual ordeal –
The scale of the human cost was clear at the city’s main morgue at the Connaught Hospital, which was overwhelmed with bodies on Monday, while residents spoke of their struggles to cope with the destruction and find their loved ones.
An AFP journalist saw several homes submerged in Regent village, a hilltop community, and corpses floating in the water in the Lumley West area of the city.
Deputy Information Minister Cornelius Deveaux confirmed on Monday that Koroma had declared a national emergency, and said his own boss, Information Minister Mohamed Bangura, was in hospital after being injured in the flooding.
Deveaux said hundreds of people had lost their lives and had properties damaged, and promised food and other assistance for the victims.
Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, raising the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.
Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.
Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.
The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UNDP’s 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
