At least 14 people have been confirmed dead on Sunday from a landslide that occurred during a funeral in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.
According to Reuters News agency, the death was confirmed by Naseri Bea, the region’s governor while rescue continues.
Mr Bea described the area where the landslide occurred as a “very dangerous spot.” He encouraged people to stay away from the Damas district in Yaounde’s eastern outskirts.
The news agency reported from a witness that the disaster occurred as people gathered on a football pitch at the base of a 20-metre-high soil embankment.
Among those who survived was 50-year-old Marie Claire Mendouga.
“We had just started to dance when the ground collapsed,” she told the AFP news agency.
She said she “went to dig with my hands” to try to get people out from under the earth and was still covered in the brown clay from the site.
Yaounde 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.
Landslides occur relatively frequently in Cameroon but are rarely as deadly as Sunday’s incident in Yaounde
In May 2021, 27 miners died in a landslide that led to the deportation of over 1,000 illegal miners.
Also, 43 people were killed in the western city of Bafoussam in 2019 when a landslide triggered by heavy rains swept away a dozen precarious dwellings built on the side of a hill.
