Cameroon: 14 people attending a funeral were killed in a landslide on Sunday in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. This information was given by Naseri Paul Bea, the Governor of Central Region.
Cameroon: At least 14 people attending a funeral were killed in a landslide on Sunday in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. This information was given by Naseri Paul Bea, the Governor of Central Region.
“We are taking the bodies to the mortuary of the Central Hospital while the search for other people or bodies is still on,” he told media at the scene. “At the scene we counted 10 bodies, but before our arrival four bodies already had been taken away,” he said. “There are also a dozen serious cases dispersed in hospitals.”
According to witnesses who spoke to Reuters, dozens of people were attending a funeral on a soccer pitch at the base of a 20-metre-high soil embankment, which collapsed on top of them.
Yaounde is one of the wettest cities in Africa and is made of dozens of steep, shack-lined hills. This year, heavy rains have caused several devastating floods throughout the country, crippling infrastructure and displacing thousands.
The governor described the area where the landslide took place in the Damas neighborhood of Yaounde as a “very dangerous spot,” and he encouraged people to leave before authorities come in to clear it.
