500 dead pulled from mudslide in Sierra Leone

FREETOWN - Reuters

Rescue workers have unearthed 499 dead bodies since last week's devastating landslide near the Sierra Leone capital Freetown, the city's chief coroner told Reuters on Aug. 20.  

One of Africa's worst flooding-related disasters in years occurred when the side of Mount Sugar Loaf collapsed on Aug. 14 after heavy rain, burying parts of Regent town and overwhelming relief efforts in one of the world's poorest countries.

Authorities this week buried 461 bodies in quickly-dug graves in the nearby Waterloo cemetery, near the site of a mass burial for victims of the Ebola crisis that killed 4,000 people in the former British colony between 2014 and 2016.

Thirty-eight more bodies were found on Aug. 20, said chief coroner Seneh Dumbuya, bringing the official death toll to 499. They were being sent for immediate burial, he said.

The Red Cross said on Aug. 18 that over 600 are still missing.

Meanwhile, widespread floods have killed more than 800 people and displaced over a million in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, with aid workers warning of severe food shortages and water-borne diseases as rains continue to lash the affected areas.

Officials say this year’s flooding is the worst in several years.