Image copyright Reuters Image caption The hillside collapsed on to dozens of houses in Regent after heavy rain

At least 600 people are still missing following a mudslide and flooding that devastated parts of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, a spokesman for the president has told the BBC.

President Ernest Bai Koroma has declared seven days of mourning while pleading for "urgent support".

Nearly 400 people are confirmed dead after a mudslide in the Regent area and floods elsewhere in Freetown on Monday.

The Red Cross has warned it is a race against time to find survivors.

Presidential spokesman Abdulai Baraytay told the BBC that bodies were still being pulled from the mud and rubble.

However, a planned a mass burial of victims on Wednesday to free up space in mortuaries has been delayed, the BBC has learned.

The BBC's Martin Patience, who is in Freetown, said workers there say they have been overwhelmed by the scale of this disaster. He described the rescue effort so far as "chaotic".

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sierra Leone mudslides: Rescue and recovery operation in Freetown

Abu Bakarr Tarawallie, a Red Cross official, said rescuers were "racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss".

The British International Development Secretary Priti Patel said the UK already had "pre-positioned vital aid supplies" in Sierra Leone, while the United Nations said its local teams had mobilised and were supporting rescue efforts.

"Contingency plans are being put in place to mitigate any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

At the scene: Emotions reaching a crescendo

By Umaru Fofana, BBC reporter, Freetown

The scene at Connaught mortuary was gut-wrenching. Bodies were lying on the floor because the mortuary had run out of space. There were hundreds of them, and I lost count of the number.

Expect more raw emotions when families go to identify the corpses.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Martin Patience reports from outside Freetown's mortuary

My own emotions have reached a crescendo and I am finding it hard to sleep.

While at the scene of the disaster, even though the sun shone brightly, I was drenched in tears to the point that I went to the washroom.

The emergency workers thought it was for reasons of hygiene, but it was to wash away my tears.

Officially, a rescue operation is under way, but it is more like a recovery operation. Only corpses are being retrieved, and ambulances are taking them to the over-crowded mortuary.

Meanwhile, the community is still coming to terms with the scale of the horror.

Ben Munson, who works for the charity Street Child in Freetown, said the stories he was hearing on the ground were "horrific".

"One lady who our Street Child team was working with was inconsolable," he told the BBC. "She had injuries on her arms and her face and she was eating the food that we were handing out, but wasn't able to speak.

"My team later managed to sort of calm her down and she explained her story, and she was pulled out of the rubble after the disaster had happened and unfortunately she had lost all of her children and her husband."

Homes in the hilltop community of Regent were engulfed after part of Sugar Loaf mountain collapsed following heavy rain early on Monday. Many victims were asleep in bed when disaster struck.

President Koroma fought back tears as he toured Regent on Tuesday and said the devastation was "overwhelming us".

"Entire communities have been wiped out. We need urgent support now," he said.

He urged people to stay away from the affected areas.

"This tragedy of great magnitude has once again challenged us to come together, to stand by each other and to help one another," he said.

Flooding is not unusual in Sierra Leone, where unsafe housing in makeshift settlements can be swept away by heavy rains.

The rains often hit areas in and around Freetown, an overcrowded coastal city of more than one million people.</s>At least 600 people are still missing following a mudslide and flooding that devastated parts of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, a spokesman for the president has told the BBC.

President Ernest Bai Koroma earlier pleaded for “urgent support”, saying entire communities had been wiped out.

Nearly 400 people are confirmed dead after a mudslide in the Regent area and floods elsewhere in Freetown on Monday.

The Red Cross has warned it is a race against time to find survivors.

A mass burial of victims is planned on Wednesday to free up space in mortuaries.

Presidential spokesman Abdulai Baraytay told the BBC that bodies were still being pulled from the mud and rubble.

“The entire community is now in mourning. Loved ones are still missing, well over 600 people,” he said.

The UN said its teams in Sierra Leone had mobilised and were supporting rescue efforts.

“Contingency plans are being put in place to mitigate any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Homes in the hilltop community of Regent were engulfed after part of Sugar Loaf mountain collapsed following heavy rain early on Monday. Many victims were asleep in bed when disaster struck.

President Koroma fought back tears as he toured Regent on Monday and said the devastation was “overwhelming us”.

“Entire communities have been wiped out. We need urgent support now,” he said.

He urged people to stay away from the affected areas.

“This tragedy of great magnitude has once again challenged us to come together, to stand by each other and to help one another,” he said.

Flooding is not unusual in Sierra Leone, where unsafe housing in makeshift settlements can be swept away by heavy rains.

The rains often hit areas in and around Freetown, an overcrowded coastal city of more than one million people.</s>Freetown: At least 400 people have been confirmed dead and 600 people are still missing following a mudslide and flooding in the Sierra Leone capital, officials said on Wednesday.

President Ernest Bai Koroma declared seven days of mourning while pleading for “urgent support”. According to a statement from the Office of the President, the national mourning will be observed from August 16 till August 22, during which all flags would be flown at half mast, BBC reported.

Nearly 400 people were confirmed dead after the mudslide in the Regent area and floods elsewhere in Freetown on Monday. The Red Cross warned it is a race against time to find survivors.

Presidential spokesman Abdulai Baraytay told the BBC that bodies were still being pulled from the mud and rubble. A planned a mass burial of victims on Wednesday to free up space in mortuaries was delayed, the report said.

Rescue workers described the situation as “chaotic”.

Abu Bakarr Tarawallie, a Red Cross official, said rescuers were “racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss”.

The British International Development Secretary Priti Patel said the UK already had “pre-positioned vital aid supplies” in Sierra Leone, while the UN said its local teams had mobilised and were supporting rescue efforts.

“Contingency plans are being put in place to mitigate any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Homes in the hilltop community of Regent were engulfed after a part of Sugar Loaf mountain collapsed following heavy rain early on Monday. Many victims were asleep in bed when disaster struck.

President Koroma fought back tears as he toured Regent on Tuesday and said the devastation was “overwhelming us”. “Entire communities have been wiped out. We need urgent support now,” he said. He urged people to stay away from the affected areas.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Cornnelius Deveaux said the search to identify corpses and possible survivors was still in progress as hundreds more were feared to remain missing after the mudslide hit.</s>Sierra Leone mudslide: At least 600 still missing in Freetown

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The United Nations said Tuesday it was evaluating humanitarian needs in Sierra Leone, while the first Israeli aid packages were sent and Britain pledged its support.

With morgues overwhelmed with bodies, burials began on Tuesday for some of the bodies too mutilated to identify.

President Ernest Bai Koroma fought back tears on Tuesday as he visited the devastated hilltop community of Regent, saying the scale of the challenge ahead was "overwhelming us".

"Entire communities have been wiped out," Koroma said. "We need urgent support now."

The government of Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, has promised relief to more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in Regent and registration centres to count those left on the streets.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York the UN country team was "supporting national authorities in rescue operations, helping evacuate residents, providing medical assistance to the injured, registering survivors, and providing food rations, water and dignity kits to those affected."

The Red Cross says 600 people are still missing, while more than 300 are already confirmed dead.

Adele Fox, national health coordinator for Sierra Leone for the charity Concern Worldwide, told AFP that the search for bodies continued but the survivors were facing difficult conditions.

"There is basic need for food, water, sanitation equipment and medical assistance. Since it is still rainy season, further flooding is also a possibility," she warned.

The sentiment among those in the disaster areas had shifted from shock and grief to anger at what is an annual problem in Freetown, though never before on this scale.

"There is some frustration over the regularity of flooding and destruction during the rainy season and its effects," she said.

Deforestation, a lack of urban planning and vulnerability to climate change had all played a part, it said.

The UN said contingency plans were being put into place in case of any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea, as dirty water stagnates.

Sulaiman Zaino Parker, an official with Freetown`s city council, said 150 burials took place on Tuesday evening and that many would be laid to rest in graves alongside victims of the country`s last humanitarian disaster, the Ebola crisis, in nearby Waterloo.

"We have started burying some of the mutilated and decomposed bodies. All the corpses will be given a dignified burial with Muslim and Christian prayers," Parker said.

 The graves would be specially marked for future identification, he added.

Three days of torrential rain culminated on Monday in the Regent mudslide and massive flooding elsewhere in the city, one of the world`s wettest urban areas.

Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, and in 2015 bad weather killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UN Development Programme`s 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.</s>With hundreds dead and nearly 600 more still missing, the Holy Father is praying for the victims, their families and rescue workers.

VATICAN CITY — With hundreds dead and nearly 600 more still missing as a result of a giant mudslide that ravished Sierra Leone’s capital, Pope Francis is praying for the victims, their families and rescue workers.

“Deeply saddened by the devastating consequences of the mudslide on the outskirts of Freetown, His Holiness Pope Francis assures those who have lost loved ones of his closeness at this difficult time,” read an Aug. 16 telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Addressed to Freetown’s Archbishop Charles Edward Tamba, the telegram relayed the Pope’s sympathies and assured his prayers for all who have died.

The telegram comes two days after flooding and a large mudslide killed some 400 people in Sierra Leone’s capital city of Freetown Monday, with some 600 still missing.

According to the BBC, a mass burial of victims that had been scheduled for Wednesday in order to free up space in mortuaries has been delayed as the “chaotic” disaster continues to unfold.

Flooding is not uncommon in the overcrowded town of one million residents, leaving those who live in unsafe, makeshift housing especially at risk during natural disasters. Monday’s slide is thought to be the worst incident in the past two decades.

At least 100 houses were wiped out when a hillside in Regent, a mountain town some 15 miles east of Freetown, collapsed, submerging entire buildings and taking people with them.

Bodies have continued to be retrieved from the mud and rubble, but efforts to identify them are proving difficult in the chaos.

In his telegram, the Pope not only offered his prayers for the victims, but also extended “divine blessings of strength and consolation” upon their families.

Francis also expressed his “prayerful solidarity with the rescue workers and all involved in providing the much-needed relief and support to the victims of this disaster.”</s>The death toll from a devastating mudslide on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s capital climbed Thursday to 331 as mourners prepared to lay their dead to rest in a mass burial.

Rescue workers have recovered the bodies of 122 children, 111 men and 98 women from the wreckage, Sidie Yahya Tunis, the country’s Minister for Tourism and Cultural Affairs, told CNN.

Around 600 people are still unaccounted for after heavy rains struck the Regent district in the early hours of Monday morning, causing torrents of mud to wash down Mount Sugar Loaf, about 5 miles outside the capital, Freetown, according to government officials and aid agencies.

Houses that hugged the slopes, many of them little more than wooden shacks with tin roofs, were buried after a chunk of the mountain came down under the force of the water.

The mass burial, initially planned for Wednesday, was postponed for a day to allow families to identify their loved ones. The country’s President, Ernest Bai Koroma, and other dignitaries are expected to attend the afternoon ceremony.

The city morgue at the Connaught Hospital has been overwhelmed by the influx of victims in what is one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit Africa in recent years.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 people have also been displaced, Abu Bakarr, spokesman for the Red Cross in Sierra Leone, told CNN on Tuesday.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II sent her condolences Thursday to the people of Sierra Leone.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all who have lost loved ones and those whose homes and livelihoods have been affected,” she said in a statement posted on her official Twitter account.

Flooding is not unusual in the region, which is experiencing its rainy season.

But this year has been particularly wet, with Freetown receiving more than 27 inches of rain between July 1 and August 13 — more than double the average of 11.8 inches, according to the US National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center.</s>Sierra Leone's government urged family members to come to the capital's overwhelmed mortuary Wednesday to identify their loved ones' remains as the West African nation prepared to bury hundreds of mudslide and flood victims.Crews continued the grim work of extracting bodies from tons of debris after fierce storms left impoverished, low-lying areas of Freetown buried in mud from the city's hilltops. Volunteers have been digging with pick axes and, at times, only their hands.More than 300 people are confirmed dead - a third of them children - and Red Cross officials estimate some 600 others remain missing more than 48 hours after the storm hit. Thousands of people have lost their homes.President Ernest Bai Koroma's office asked relatives to come to the city's morgue, saying that all unidentified corpses will be given a "dignified burial" in the coming days. He had called for seven days of mourning starting on Wednesday.Brima Mundeh, 40, said he feared that three of his missing family members were buried under the mud unleashed by the storm Monday morning. Three more relatives were already confirmed dead. He escaped with his two children."I can't describe the magic that took me and my family out of my house . but I believe it's the work of God 'cause I don't know where the strength and power came from to get us out," he said.Amid the chaos of rescue efforts, the government has said contingency plans were being put in place to try to stem the outbreak of diseases such as cholera.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.The threat of further mudslides around Freetown remained Wednesday. Many poor areas of the capital are near sea level and have poor drainage systems, which makes flooding worse during the rainy season.Freetown also is plagued by unregulated construction of large residential houses in hilltop areas. Deforestation for firewood and charcoal is another leading contributor to flooding and mudslides.</s>There is a growing sense of anger outside Freetown's mortuary, where residents have been gathering since Monday's mudslide killed at least 600 people.

The BBC's Martin Patience reports from the scene.</s>Nearly half of the 400 people known to have died in a mudslide and flooding on the outskirts of the Sierra Leone capital Freetown have already been buried, health officials say.

The government had said mass burials would be postponed until Thursday to allow relatives to identify victims.

But the chief pathologist of Freetown told the BBC that some interments had already taken place.

About 600 people are still missing following the disaster.

President Ernest Bai Koroma has declared seven days of mourning while pleading for "urgent support".

The burials involved people who had already been identified or whose bodies were badly decomposed, Freetown's chief pathologist Dr Simeon Owizz Koroma said.

They have been taken to a mass grave in Waterloo known as the Ebola cemetery after the 2014 disease outbreak, which killed nearly 4,000 people in the country.

Volunteers said there were more bodies inside the mortuary that urgently needed to be buried because they had decomposed.

Homes in the hilltop community of Regent were engulfed after part of Sugar Loaf mountain collapsed following heavy rain early on Monday. Many victims were asleep in bed when disaster struck.

The dead included more than 100 children.

The Red Cross has warned it is a race against time to find survivors. The search is taking place using diggers and makeshift tools.

Some international aid for the thousands of people left homeless by the mudslide has begun to arrive in the country.

Flooding is not unusual in Sierra Leone, where unsafe housing in makeshift settlements can be swept away by heavy rains.

The rains often hit areas in and around Freetown, an overcrowded coastal city of more than one million people.
A mass burial of victims of the landslide is held in Freetown to free up space in mortuaries. Nearly 400 people are confirmed dead with at least 600 missing.