As Sierra Leone death toll hits 300, President Koroma appeals for help

Sierra Leone's president appealed on Tuesday for urgent help for the flood-hit capital of Freetown where more than 300 people have died, as rescue workers resumed the grim search for bodies.

The Red Cross says it is struggling to excavate families buried deep in the mud that engulfed their homes, although several bodies were pulled up by machines in the devastated hilltop community of Regent on Tuesday, witnesses said.

Addressing the media in Regent, one of the areas hit hardest by the flooding, President Ernest Bai Koroma fought back tears as he said the devastation "was overwhelming us".

"Entire communities have been wiped out," Koroma said at the disaster site, where heavy rains streaming down the hill caused a landslide and engulfed homes three or four storeys high on Monday, many of them built illegally.

"We need urgent support now."

TRT World's Arabella Munro has this report.

The government has promised relief to the more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in Regent and four registration centres, while Interior Minister Paolo Conteh told Sierra Leone's state broadcaster that thousands of people remained missing. 

Israel and Britain said they were sending aid as quickly as possible to the stricken west African city of around one million people.

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Massaquoi said on Monday that the death toll was 312, but another Red Cross official, Abu Bakarr Tarrawallie, put the death toll at 245 on Tuesday, while local media and officials all gave different tolls.

Dangerous waters

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.

Makeshift settlements that clung to the hills and shores were swept away or torn apart.

The city's drainage system was quickly overwhelmed, leaving stagnant water pooling in some areas while creating dangerous churning waterways down steep streets.

Sierra Leone's meteorological department issued no warning ahead of the torrential rains, which might have allowed for swifter evacuations from the disaster zones, locals said.

Annual flooding

Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, raising the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UNDP's 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.