By Spy Uganda
Untold horror engulfed Ivory Coast on Thursday after at least 13 people were reported to have died as a result of landslides that ravaged the Ivory Coast main city of Abidjan, after a drainage channel burst following torrential rains on Wednesday night.
Authorities revealed although 13 were confirmed to have died, several others are missing after the landslide swept away homes and shops.
“The provisional death toll is 13 and searches are continuing,” Abidjan’s Prefect Vincent Toh Bi said on Thursday, adding that “20 houses were swept away” in the teeming suburb of Anyama, north of the coastal city.
“I have lost my three-year-old son and I am looking for his body,” Aboubacar Dagnon told AFP news agency, after his wife’s home was flattened.
Another resident said a part of a hillock broke away and cascaded on homes at about 8:00Am local time after a drainage channel collapsed.
“The landslide occurred in an area which saw more than three times as much rain between June 12-15 than is usual”, Defence Minister Hamed Bakayoko told journalists.
“The toll could get higher with ongoing search. We could have at least 20 dead as a result of the landslides because there are still a lot of houses to explore,” Sylla told the media.
Abidjan is home to some five million people, many of whom live in precarious shantytowns in flood-prone or dangerous zones.
Landslides and deadly floods are common in the city during the rainy season which runs from April until the end of October, routinely costing lives in informal settlements built onto eroding hillsides.
There were heavy downpours in other parts of the country this week, raising concerns they could damage crops in the world’s top cocoa producer.
Farmers in the western region of Soubre, at the heart of the Ivorian cocoa belt, said the rains were so heavy they fear the torrents could pluck off young pods and flowers from trees. This could reduce crop output in August and September.
They added that harvested beans could become mouldy in the coming week as the weather remained cloudy, making it difficult to dry their beans properly because of lack of sunshine.
