A suckling mother, Marie Kargbo and her one year old child have been found dead at the Bottom Oku Wharf Wellington, in the East end of Freetown Thursday 15th August 2019. They were caught up in the deadly flood that ravaged her community, along Water Street in the Wellington area. Community people say, two others that were suspected to have been drifted away by the same flashfloods were still missing despite frantic efforts to recover their bodies by volunteers. All four of the dead were apparently sleeping when water from the torrential rains which started in the early hours of Thursday morning developed in to a flash flood and forcefully entered their rooms n their homes on Water Street Wellington.
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More than five others are reportedly hospitalized after sustaining serious injuries. Community people said properties worth millions of Leones were also destroyed as a result of the heavy rains. Abu Kargbo, a brother to one of the victims (Marie) said “The pressure of the flooded water uprooted the fence which fell and destroyed three more houses in the same area.” The collapsed fence opened the way for the water, which poured through the houses and swept away the victims. He explained that the water was the primary cause of the disaster, but the root cause was the absence of any passage for the water in that area because houses had been constructed along the waterways and even the drainages are not properly kept. Kargbo furthered that community people were aware of the risk associated with their staying in such a place, especially during the rainy season when water usually flows from all angles. In another development flash floods also caused havoc as water entered into the houses of people living down lower Mellon Street in a community known as ’Crab town,’ but no fatality was reported. The streets were littered with gravel washed down from the hilly areas causing trouble for easy movement of vehicles. These gravel stones also found their way down on to Bai Bureh Road causing serious traffic jams. Abdulai, a resident of Water Street said the disaster came to him as a surprise. “This has not been the case here for the past fifteen years that I have stayed in this community,” he said. He attributed the disaster to the lack of adequate drainage to control the torrent of water from the hill side areas in the wellington axis. Felicia Kamara, another resident in the wellington area disagreed with Abdulai, saying the area itself was disaster prone but the people were turning a blind eye to it. “The houses are built with mud bricks and the foundations are not well structured to withstand the shock of heavy rains,” Kamara said. Another victim of the Thursday 15 August flood is one of Sierra Leone’s most popular Disc Joker (DJ) at the east end of Freetown, called ‘ DJ Kallox’. According to the President of the East End Artist Union, Emmanuel Rogers commonly called ‘Artical Foyoh, who broke the news, DJ Kallox House was halfway covered by the flood water which rushed through the main door into his house and almost all his properties were destroyed. Another community that was badly affected by the disaster was a place called New York in Yams Farm. The bridge linking Yams Farm and Hastings at the Old Road has long been damaged by heavy vehicles bypassing the Toll Gate about 8 months ago. The only road now linking the community hosting the Military Peace Mission Training Centre with the Waterloo highway has been completely ravaged by the heavy downpour of rain rending the road now un-motorable.
By Abdulai Gbla & Alhaji M. Kamara
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