Landslide in Cameroon kills at least 11: governor, According to the regional governor, at least 11 persons were murdered in a landslide in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, on Sunday as they were gathering to grieve the loss of close relatives.
Landslide in Cameroon kills at least 11: governor
“The search is continuing to find other bodies under the earth,” Naseri Paul Bea, governor of the Centre region that includes Yaounde, told CRTV radio. The people had gathered to mourn members of their families who had died, governor Bea told CRTV. Early Sunday evening, police pick-up tracks were taking away bodies covered by white sheets, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.
Emergency services were trying to make their way to the site, as hundreds of local people frantically searched for loved ones. Some people in the crowd wept as emergency workers searched the site. The disaster happened in the working-class district of Damas, on the eastern outskirts of the capital.
Residents told AFP that several families had gathered on waste ground at the top of a hill under large tents when part of the ground collapsed beneath them. At the top of the hill, an AFP reporter spotted four substantial white tents on the edge of what appeared to be a ridge, beyond which the ground had vanished. Journalists were prevented from approaching the disaster scene by a police cordon.