Over Hundreds feared - dead in mudslide near Freetown
Over - Hundreds of people are feared dead after a mudslide on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, officials and witnesses say.
Victor Foh, vice president of the West African country, has said many people are still buried underneath the debris.
"It is likely that hundreds are lying dead underneath the rubble," Foh told Reuters news agency at the scene of Monday's mudslide in the mountain town of Regent.
He said a number of illegal buildings had been erected in the area hit by the mudslide.
"The disaster is so serious that I myself feel broken," he said. "We're trying to cordon [off] the area [and] evacuate the people.
I counted over 300 bodies and more are coming," Mohamed Sinneh, a morgue technician at Freetown's Connaught Hospital, told AFP news agency, having earlier described an "overwhelming number of dead" at the facility leaving no space to lay out every body.
Sierra Leone's national broadcaster announced late on Monday that the death toll had risen above 300.
Initial Red Cross estimates said as many as 3,000 people were left homeless by the disaster and that figure was expected to rise. Communications and electricity also were affected.
The mortuary at Connaught Hospital was overwhelmed by the number of dead, and bodies had to be spread out on the floor, coroner's technician Sinneh Kamara told The Associated Press.
The toll did not include the untold numbers buried alive in their homes as they slept. More bodies also were expected to be found as floodwaters recede.u
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