On Friday 2 August 2019, a landslide covered five houses in Mbamba Yillah community, adjacent to where the deadly landslide of 14 August 2017 took place. It was part of a series of issues caused by heavy rain on Friday. According to the Meteorology Agency, 176 milliliters of rain fell in only two hours. There are other cracks in the terrain, which attracted the Minister of Lands and Country Planning, Dennis Sandy to the community on 6 August 2019. He said, “No new development should take place in Sugar Loaf because of it’s disaster prone nature.” Minister Sandy, accompanied by military personnel and men with “land repossession team”, shut down a building site.
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According to John Rogers, Director of the Disaster Management Department at the Office of National Security (ONS), the department is holding a meeting with engineers, geologists and environmentalists to examine development in the area. ONS has recommended that residents in the area relocate voluntarily, but did not provide alternatives to residents and has not passed a relocation policy. “We want to move everyone and declare it a reserve area, meaning that no one can go there,” he said. Mustapha Thomas, Head of the Geology Department at Fourah Bay College at the University of Sierra Leone, agreed that the areas are unsafe for those living there. He said that researchers have not determined whether the recent crack was caused by existing fractures or by the torrential rainfall, but speculated that it was a combination of both. “These areas need to be declared disaster prone, evacuated, and steps need to be taken to ensure that no one comes back,” he said. When landslides occur, it is because the slope of the land has been undercut to a point where it cannot support itself anymore. Both human actions like construction, and increased weight from rain contribute to instances of landslide. Fatmata Jalloh, said her house was one of the five that were covered in the 2nd August 2019 landslide. She said she and her husband discovered the cracks and reported it to the community leaders before it happened. She now lives in an unfinished building with her three children. “My daughter is sick because of the cold, as we are sleeping on the bare floor,” she said. “All of our things are gone.” Many members of the community said that they welcomed relocation, but do not own any other land to move to, and called on the government for assistance. The chief of the community, Pa Alimamy Sesay said that the community doesn’t have basic amenities and many want to leave. He said that the government promised to relocate them, but never fulfilled that promise. “The people here are not having sleep, the people are sufferers,” he said. “The government should look for a place for us and relocate us.”
DT/7/8/19
By David Thoronka and Emma Scher
Wednesday August 07, 2019.
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