Sequences of the Mbankolo disaster
The horror of Mbankolo
We found people in the mud, the water is part with other bodies
Philémon Ngameni, resident of the Mbankolo district
This Monday, the day after the sad event, people are still in shock. They have difficulty digesting the ordeal experienced the day before after the heavy rain which fell in the city. The appalling scenes are punctuated by concerts of tears and anguish weighing down the atmosphere of Mbankolo, the place called Nkol-Etam.
“I was lying with my youngest children in the bedroom, the one who was in the living room calls out to me to tell me that the water has flooded the house, while watching through the window, I realize that the torrent has carried away the bathroom “, relates Julienne Youmbi, a traumatized victim who later found herself in hospital. Before that, she said: ” THE bodies were floating on the water outside my door. I asked the young people who were searching the bodies to save my baby who was left in my room.”
At the scene of the tragedy, the victims’ tongues struggle to loosen themselves. This is the case of Philémon Ngameni who was outside the neighborhood during the tragedy: “the rain caused too much damage, I mean too much damage. The rain spoiled everything. We found people in the mud, the water is part with other bodies ».
In Mbankolo this Sunday October 8, “there is a small lake that has formed up the hill for more than 60 ans. At times he has well-known deviations. It was the construction of houses on the bed of the river, which blocked the water evacuation channels from the lake. Indeed, it was the increase in the water level of the lake that caused the rupture of a dike built during the colonial era, triggering a mudslide.explains Blaise Konga who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 50 years.
Hundreds of dead
A victim in the rubble
There were more than 30 people at this celebration, and all of them died in this accident
Julienne, a landslide survivor
If according to the government, the landslide left at least 30 dead and 17 injured, the affected populations met at the scene unanimously indicated more than a hundred deaths as a result of their eyes being washed away by the water. Indeed, we learn, at the time the lake gave way, a family was in the middle of birthday celebrationall the people there were swallowed up. “There were more than 30 people at this celebration, and all of them died in this accident, since it was the first house that the torrent swept away,” confides Julienne, very saddened.
Official sources indicate that around thirty homes were swept away by a strong wave. Near the scene of the tragedy, Brandon remembers hearing the sound of the wall falling. “People are just screaming. The first images I saw were people running up from everywhere in panic. The second image I saw was a woman lying dead », he says.
In its passage, the avalanche destroyed homes built on the hillsides and the river bed. It was around 7 p.m. that the tragedy occurred in this neighborhood located in the 2nd arrondissement of the capital of Cameroon. 92 hours after the tragedy, emotions are still strong at the scene. This Monday morning, before our eyes, a hearse of red color in which there are a dozen lifeless bodies covered with white sheets are transported to the morgue of the central hospital of Yaoundé to facilitate the identification of the corpses.
Ndolè fish
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