Mass dead after devastating

Sierra Leone mudslide.

Facing the threat of disease, people in Sierra Leone on Wednesday began burying hundreds of victims of a mudslide that swept away homes on the edge of the capital, Freetown, in one of Africa's worst flood disasters in living memory.

One Hundreds of Freetown residents queued to identify relatives crushed by mud on Monday in a valley on the outskirts of Freetown. Aid workers said there was a high risk of disease outbreaks such as cholera, as corpses are lying out in the open in the heat.

The government summoned families to the morgue and said all unidentified corpses would be buried on Thursday and Friday.

In a statement on Wednesday, President Ernest Bai Koroma's office asked relatives to come to the city's overwhelmed mortuary. All unidentified corpses will be given a "dignified burial" in the coming days, it said.

Authorities have requested air conditioning units to keep the bodies cool and are in need of more protective gear such as masks, aprons and glove disposal stations, said Idalia Amaya, an emergency relief coordinator for (CRS), Catholic Relief Services.

"The morgues are just overflowing with corpses and it is becoming a public health emergency," Amaya said. "They need to get the bodies out."

Plea for international help

More than 300 people have been confirmed dead - a third of them children - from the devastating mudslides that hit before dawn on Monday, triggered by days of heavy rain.

Red Cross officials estimated some 600 others remained missing more than 48 hours after the storm hit while most of the victims slept, Thousands of people lost their homes.

Sierra Leone's government has pleaded for international assistance as it reels from yet another disaster just a couple of years after the Ebola outbreak that left thousands in the region dead.

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