By Alie Turay & Saidu Bah
Torrential rains yesterday caused a landslide, killing four youths at the Oloshoro community at Murray Town wharf, where thousands of people have built shanty houses on disaster prone areas by the sea side.
The torrential rains reportedly caused the landslide, as the earth was hanging over many makeshift structures on a reclaimed land, killing four people and also damaging properties worth millions of Leones.
The landslide took place in the early hours of yesterday morning when many of the residents were asleep.
According to an eye-witness Mohamed Sesay, who resides a few yards to the disaster scene, said during the torrential rains yesterday, they had a loud noise of stones and earth falling on a roof.
He said, when they rushed to the scene, they observed that one of the houses had been swallowed by the landslide and they were told four people usually sleep in one of the rooms.
Moments later, Sesay said they called on the National Fire Force for their intervention while community people used, hoes, shovels, pickaxes and sticks to dig-out the earth for the removal of the victims.
Community people, friends and relatives were wailing at the disaster scene, as the people struggled to remove the dead bodies of the victims.
The four deceased persons were identified as Gibrilla, Paul, Ibrahim and George; they had been sleeping in the room together for many years until disaster struck yesterday morning.
The National Fire Force arrived at the disaster scene later and helped community youths to excavate the soil, to remove the dead bodies.
However, AWOKO observed that the Murray Town Community especially by the seaside has seen massive expansion of dwelling houses like any other slum in Freetown.
The sprawling communities are haphazardly built on a reclaimed land underneath heavy boulders and high-soil which according to residents, can be described as a disaster zone.
Their shacks and beddings are made up of a heap of cartoons and wooden pallets or a bundle of straw, supplying the want of a bed, all cooped up in a single room which serves as place for both domestic and household occupations.
The scenes of filthiness and confusion that the old and young, sick and healthy, are promiscuously crowded into ill-contrived shacks on a deplorable inhabitation, their dwellings are little better than pig beds.
It was also observed that eight persons were indiscriminately lodged in a crowded shack, seldom or never ventilated dark and damp during sunny days-the beds and bedding swarming with vermin, single and married, old and young, all mixed without regards to decency.
The situation around Murray Town Wharf and its developing slum according to a community activist Molai Bangura is a concern to all stakeholders in the area and called for the intervention of the Government to address the housing problem so as to avoid another disaster.
The Sierra Leone Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has also warned over pending disasters waiting to happen due to the poor land and environmental management.
