The death toll from a devastating mudslide on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s capital climbed Thursday to 331 as mourners prepared to lay their dead to rest in a mass burial.
Rescue workers have recovered the bodies of 122 children, 111 men and 98 women from the wreckage, Sidie Yahya Tunis, the country’s Minister for Tourism and Cultural Affairs, told CNN.
Around 600 people are still unaccounted for after heavy rains struck the Regent district in the early hours of Monday morning, causing torrents of mud to wash down Mount Sugar Loaf, about 5 miles outside the capital, Freetown, according to government officials and aid agencies.
Houses that hugged the slopes, many of them little more than wooden shacks with tin roofs, were buried after a chunk of the mountain came down under the force of the water.
The mass burial, initially planned for Wednesday, was postponed for a day to allow families to identify their loved ones. The country’s President, Ernest Bai Koroma, and other dignitaries are expected to attend the afternoon ceremony.
The city morgue at the Connaught Hospital has been overwhelmed by the influx of victims in what is one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit Africa in recent years.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 people have also been displaced, Abu Bakarr, spokesman for the Red Cross in Sierra Leone, told CNN on Tuesday.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II sent her condolences Thursday to the people of Sierra Leone.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with all who have lost loved ones and those whose homes and livelihoods have been affected,” she said in a statement posted on her official Twitter account.
Flooding is not unusual in the region, which is experiencing its rainy season.
But this year has been particularly wet, with Freetown receiving more than 27 inches of rain between July 1 and August 13 — more than double the average of 11.8 inches, according to the US National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center.
