By The Health Newspaper SL
Today Monday 14th August, 2023 is the day to commemorate the 6th anniversary of the mudslide and flash flood disaster that took place on Mount Sugar Loaf at Mortormeh, Regent Village and other parts in the capital Freetown on Monday 14th August, 2017 that resulted to the death of hundreds of innocent Sierra Leonean souls and rendering thousands of people homeless.
The areas that were seriously affected by the flash flood in Freetown were the Kaningo and Pentagon communities in the west of the capital, and Culvert and Race Course in east end Freetown amongst other communities.
The magnitude of the natural disaster left Sierra Leoneans and the entire world completely dumbfounded as it was by far greater than the mudslide that occurred on the same Mount Sugar Loaf in the early 1900s, according to BBC’s Umaru Fofana.
Many believe the number of people who perished in the unprecedented catastrophe that occurred within a single moment by far surpassed the destruction of lives during the eleven-year-long civil conflict or the two-year outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) given the length of period and the magnitude of destruction.
On that fatal Monday morning when the disaster struck at Mortormeh and some deprived communities in the municipality, the Coroner Technician at the Connaught Teaching Hospital, Sinneh Kamara was on his way to work on board his official vehicle under the wet weather. His first encounter with the flash flood was at the Juba Bridge now called the Sengbeh Pieh and according to him, he had never seen the magnitude of such flash flood in the history of Sierra Leone until that day.
The Coroner Technician said whilst he was brooding over what the flash flood would result to, he received a distress call from a concerned citizen at Regent Village informing him that something disastrous had happened at Mount Sugar Loaf and he feared that many people may have lost their lives at the Mortormeh community.
Mr. Kamara, who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Death and Destitute Organization that is responsible for the collection and burial of the destitute, said he immediately responded by heading straight to Regent Village, adding that at Mortormeh he saw some dead bodies that had been discovered by rescuers and he straight away conveyed some of the corpses to the Connaught Hospital Central Mortuary with his official vehicle.
Mr. Kamara said when he conveyed the first set of dead bodies at the mortuary, he hastily organized his staff and volunteers to intensify the process of conveying the dead bodies that were discovered at Mortormeh and other affected communities where deaths were also reported.
The Coroner Technician furthered that after he had assembled his men and women to start conveying the dead bodies from Mortormeh and across the capital, they embarked on the task with only one hearse and his official open van before another hearse was provided by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation because of the massive discoveries of dead bodies at Mortormeh in particular and other affected communities.
The CEO disclosed that they were able to convey about two hundred bodies to the Central Mortuary at Connaught Hospital in less than two hours after the disaster, adding that because of the non-response of the state authorities during the early hours of the disaster, he was prompted by the unprecedented catastrophe to rush to the AYV and SLBC TVs to inform the public and the rest of the world about the disaster that had struck.
Mr. Kamara said thousands of concerned people started streaming into the Central Mortuary immediately after his engagement with the two television stations to ascertain the veracity of the information. He added that when the curious public finally saw the heaps of dead bodies both inside and outside the mortuary, they shed endless tears and started spreading the news on both the social and traditional media, as well as through other channels the world over.
Thousands of concerned citizens rushed to the mortuary in tears to either see for themselves or to identify their loved ones, especially those who had their people residing at Mortormeh and other affected areas, Mr. Kamara said, adding that it was only after more than two hundred dead bodies had been conveyed to the mortuary that some senior government officials rushed to the mortuary to ascertain the magnitude of the disaster, including the erstwhile Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr Abu Bakarr Fofanah, whose Ministry did not make any provision for more hearses to enhance the conveying of the dead bodies to the mortuary ambulances despite there were hundreds of dead bodies to be conveyed to the mortuary.
Mr. Kamara said despite his effort to let the public and the world know about the cataclysm, he was later rebuked by some senior government officials that put to him that he was not a government spokesman to have broken the news of the unprecedented disaster to the world.
He accused the then Government of poorly responding to the disaster management because of lack of resources until philanthropists, humanitarian organizations, business institutions, friends of Sierra Leone in the outside world and volunteers came in handy to support Government’s response efforts to the disaster.
Even so, he said, many Sierra Leoneans frowned on the Government in its response effort, especially when billions of Leones and millions of United States Dollars were donated towards the disaster response amidst complaints of corruption from thousands of people who were made homeless by the disaster, alleging that the funds were mismanaged by the Government.
According to the Coroner Technician, one of his observations during the disaster was that the Connaught Hospital Central Mortuary was not able to accommodate the overwhelming number of dead bodies that was discovered on that sombre day. Mr. Kamara said on that fatal day, the mortuary was so cramped with dead bodies that scores of them were laid on the bare floor within the vicinity of the mortuary. This, he said, was a complete disrespect for the dead. The Coroner Technician therefore believes that the mortuary desperately needs an expansion to accommodate more dead bodies in case of any future disaster of such magnitude, though no one would wish for it to recur.
Mr. Kamara also observed that despite five hundred complete dead bodies and four hundred dismembered bodies were conveyed to the mortuary, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) did not provide any body bags for them, adding that they conveyed almost all the dead bodies to the mortuary nude which, according to him, was disrespectfulness to the dead.
The Coroner Technician lamented that despite they worked assiduously throughout the disaster period until the victims were finally buried at Bolima, Waterloo – the cemetery where Ebola victims were buried, he and his volunteers did not receive a dime for their response efforts which he said was a very tedious exercise.
The lack of adequate hearses at the Central Mortuary to respond to emergency cases, Mr. Kamara said, is serious challenge to their operations, such as what they experienced during the mudslide and flash flood disaster, when there were only two hearses and his official open van to convey such a huge number of dead bodies to the mortuary.
The Coroner Technician however averred that as we reflect on what happened on Monday 14th August, 2017, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) should critically look into the challenges facing the Mortuary Services in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) in a bid to improve them under the ‘New Direction’ agenda of President Dr Julius Maada Bio.
Mr. Kamara also prayed for his Sierra Leonean compatriots who perished in the mudslide and flash flood disaster. “May the souls of the disaster victims rest in perfect peace, Amen!” he concluded.