“We are here to acknowledge the pain, the trauma of the mudslide tragedy,” said President Bio.
He told the crowd, including many who had lost limbs as well as loved ones to the disaster that a memorial would be built in the disaster zone.
It could be recalled that during August 2017, heavy rains lashed the slopes left bare by chronic deforestation, and huge boulders suddenly detached, rolling onto informal settlements, crushing shacks and enveloping entire households in red mud that fateful August 14.
A year on, many residents are still dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy.
Olivia Cole, who lost her husband and two children in the mudslide, said she was “still in shock when it rains at night, as if memories of the disaster are haunting me.”
“I’m still living in the disaster zone because the package NGOs and the government gave us was not enough to start a new life somewhere else,” she explained to journalists at the scene on Tuesday.
With the rainy season now in full swing in Sierra Leone, there are fears another landslide could strike Regent, where many residents still live in flood-prone areas.
President Bio in his brief address said better environment protection is needed, adding that he had banned charcoal burning, stone mining and deforestation at Sugar Loaf Mountain, where the floods turned deadly, in order “to prevent another disaster from happening.”
It could further be recalled that in the last 15 years, four major floods have affected more than 220,000 people in Sierra Leone and caused severe economic damage, according to a World Bank 2017 report.
But last rainy season’s was the deadliest yet with an estimated 1,141 people (possibly more) declared dead or unaccounted for.
