The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– Shock to anger –
Adele Fox, national health coordinator for Sierra Leone at the charity Concern Worldwide, told AFP that 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 said.
The prevailing sentiment among those in the disaster areas had shifted from shock and grief to anger at what is an annual problem in Freetown, she said, though never before on this scale.
The British charity Oxfam said it was trying to prevent a cholera outbreak by distributing clean water and hygiene kits to 2,000 households.
“These are some of the poorest areas in Freetown. Water and sanitation in homes is at best very basic, but at worst nonexistent.
“Overcrowding is a serious health risk and a potential breeding ground for the spread of disease,” said Daniel Byrne, part of the Oxfam team in the city.
Britain’s international development ministry said it was supplying tents and generators, while its military personnel had helped with relief efforts. Food and medicine would follow, it added.
The European Union released 300,000 euros ($353,000) in emergency funds, while Senegalese and Ivorian delegations handed over cash and food to President Koroma, following the lead of Guinea’s president on Tuesday.
– Wake-up call? –
There was growing concern that the warning signs had been missed in a city where illegal construction on precarious ground is common.
President Koroma said in a statement released by his office that “relocation and opening up of a new settlement around the Freetown peninsula” would be considered.
Many homes are now without a water supply due to damage to a reservoir near Regent, according to the Guma Valley Water Company.
Three days of torrential rain culminated on Monday in the Regent mudslide and torrential flooding elsewhere in the city, one of the world’s wettest urban areas.
Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, and in 2015 bad weather killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.
Sierra Leone ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UN Development Programme’s 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
