Nearly 400 bodies recovered from Sierra Leone mudslide, hundreds feared dead

Rescue workers have recovered nearly 400 bodies from a mudslide in the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, the chief coroner said on Aug. 15, as morgues struggled to find space for all the dead.

Dozens of houses were buried when a mountainside collapsed in the town of Regent early on Aug. 14 - one of the deadliest natural disasters in Africa in recent years.

President Ernest Bai Koroma urged residents of Regent and other flooded areas around Freetown to evacuate immediately so that military personnel and other rescue workers could continue to search for survivors who might be buried underneath debris. 

"As the search continues, we have collected nearly 400 bodies - but we anticipate more than 500," chief coroner Seneh Dumbuya told Reuters. 

Hundreds of other people are missing, aid agencies said. 

Bodies continued to arrive at Freetown's overwhelmed central morgue on Aug. 15. Corpses were lying on the floor and on the ground outside for lack of room, a Reuters witness said.

"Our problem here is space. We are trying to separate, quantify, and examine quickly and then we will issue death certificates before the burial," said Owiz Koroma, head of the morgue, who also estimated the death toll to be in the hundreds.

To relieve pressure on the morgue, authorities and aid agencies were preparing to bury the bodies in four different cemeteries across Freetown, said Idalia Amaya, an emergency response coordinator for Catholic Relief Services.

The burials are expected to take place on Aug. 17, government spokesman Cornelius Deveaux said. 

Medecins Sans Frontieres is providing hundreds of body bags to authorities that the medical charity kept in Sierra Leone after the 2014-16 Ebola...