Disaster struck last Thursday night when at about 8:20pm the narrow 18th Century two-lane bridge along Wallace Johnson Street over the historic St. Peter’s Brook market popularly known as ‘King Jimmy Market’.
The bridge in the central part of Freetown collapsed to the side of the market, crushing six people so far.
According to a survivor, Mohamed Dumbuya alias (Blacker), he told Awoko that together with some friends, they were having a nice time to mark the end of Ramadan but because of the heavy down- pour, the party did not last long.
Just as they were about to leave for their different destinations, disaster struck and a nice evening, despite the heavy rain, turned sour as Mohamed alias( Blacker)and his other friends, 10 of them, found themselves covered in rubble as the bridge which was built during colonial era, but with luck, there was no passing vehicle during the time, the unfortunate incident occurred. Mohamed described the incident as if it was a movie because he was neck deep in the rubble and could not see his other friends with whom they were waiting together for the rain before going home, and he Mohamed had to shout for over 30 minutes before he was rescued by some residents around the community.
During the early hours of the following morning Friday, when Awoko witnessed the scene of the disaster, military, OSD, police, ONS, Fire Force and the Sierra Leone Red Cross were in full gear, carrying out various tasks to clear the areas, as well as to rescue the victims caught up in the disaster, but to the disappointment of many onlookers there was no heavy machinery/proper equipment to assist the men in uniform carry out their duties effectively and efficiently to save lives.
What really caused the bridge to collapse? This was the question the Director-General of the Sierra Leone Roads Authority, Munda Rogers tried to explain to the media that age and erosion was the cause for collapse noting that some unpatriotic citizens blocked the in/out flow passage under the tunnel of the bridge and that this is not the first time such has happened in the country and the public should not blame the Roads Authority for the unfortunate incident.
Rogers further advised that to avert further incidents, citizens should be watchdogs, as there are other areas prone to disaster.
In the presence of President Ernest Koroma who also went to witness the scene, to get first hand information on how it all happened, the General Manager of the National Power Authority, Zubairu Kalokoh informed the president and journalists that four major NPA transport cables of fifteen megawatts got affected during the collapse and one out of the four cables which produces six megawatts, is completely out of order and this will have negative repercussion on the distribution of electricity in the city.
Guma Valley Water Company and Sierratel pipes and cables were also affected during the disaster.
City Mayor Bode Gibson was also present at the scene and in a sad but confident mood told journalists that the situation was unfortunate, as a memorandum of understanding has already been signed to construct a modern multi-storey market on the site the bridge had collapsed.
The city mayor furthered that council is aware that most of the roads in the city, need urgent rehabilitation and that plans are underway to fix the bad roads around the city, especially major roads.
Osman Kamara, the Chairman for Citizens Right Association, blamed the Sierra Leone Roads Authority for the incident that has claimed lives, stressing that if SLRA was really serious and proactive, routine checks should be carried out periodically by the engineers of the institution in order to avert such a disaster, though there are man-made and natural disasters.
Kamara also disclosed that other bridges in the city are in dire need of urgent fix-up in order to save lives.
As at press time, the national disaster management team comprising the ONS, Sierra Leone Red Cross, RSLAF, the Police and other stakeholders were still working at the site to clear the area and to see whether more bodies could be found apart from the six bodies that had been conveyed to the Connaught Hospital Mortuary.
It could be recalled that the nation experienced a rainy season disaster in August 10 2009 at Owen Street, Mountain Cut, when a stone rolled into a house killing 13 people. This King Jimmy incident took place a day to the anniversary of that Owen Street incident, making August a notorious month for disasters in Freetown.
Meanwhile, the six recovered bodies were buried yesterday following a public laying out at Walpole Street.
August 12, 2013
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