Joseph G. Bangali – Senior Staff Writer
On August 14th 2017, Sierra Leoneans woke up to the terrible tragedy unfolding at Murtormeh at Regent in the Western Rural District as the a large portion of the Sugar Loaf Mountain gave way resulting to the deaths of thousands of Sierra Leoneans as well as the destruction and complete burial of hundreds of homes.
Barely five years later it may surprise many to know that residential buildings have and are still being constructed in the same location on top of the piles of rubble where so many of our compatriots perished. This being in spite of the repeated warnings by line agencies such as the National Disaster Management Agency and the Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment.
However, on Friday 19th August 2022, a high-level delegation from the Ministry of Environment and UNOPS together with NDMA officials paid a visit to the location to assess the situation as it is being reported that there were cracks opening up in the ground.
One does not necessarily need to be a rocket scientist to recognize the disaster looming again at this location and to think that Sierra Leoneans have the audacity to move back and construct buildings on top of the buried rubble and hundreds of bodies buried there speaks volumes.
One needs to question how those building permits were acquired from the Ministry of Lands and what modalities are being put in place by the Ministry of Environment to prevent another massacre of our compatriots. Are we always going to be reactive and not preventive? The government must act and must do so quickly instead of waiting until disaster strikes. The NDMA should do all within its means to ensure that those building projects are halted immediately and those living there are evacuated immediately.