A landslide has at least killed 14 people in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé on Sunday who were attending a funeral, the region’s governor said.
The disaster occurred on Sunday as people gathered on a football pitch at the base of a 20-metre-high soil embankment in Yaoundé.
“We are carrying the corpses to the mortuary of the central hospital, while the search for other people, or corpses, is still ongoing,” Naseri Paul Bea, governor of Cameroon’s Center region, said.
Yaoundé is one of the wettest cities in Africa and is made of dozens of steep, shack-lined hills. Heavy rains have triggered several devastating floods throughout the country this year, weakening infrastructure and displacing thousands.
The governor described the area where the landslide took place as a “very dangerous spot” and encouraged people to stay away from the Damas district in Yaounde’s eastern outskirts.
Landslides occur relatively frequently in Cameroon but are rarely as deadly as Sunday’s incident in Yaoundé.