Dozens trapped underground after Cameroon landslide

Rescue teams in Cameroon were scouring the rubble of destroyed houses for survivors on Tuesday after a landslide caused by heavy rainfall killed at least 22 people, state television reported.

The police were searching for dozens more people reported as missing in the town of Bafoussam in the western highlands, some 200 km (120 miles) north of Cameroon’s main port city of Douala.

“It is clear that we will have to ask the people who are resident in this area to leave the area, because the area is actually very dangerous,” Awa Fonka Augustine, governor of the West region, told Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV).

Heavy rains have continued beyond the end of Central Africa’s rainy season, causing severe flooding that has displaced nearly 30,000 people in Cameroon’s neighbour, the Central African Republic.

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said last week that exceptionally heavy rain in South Sudan had also destroyed health centres and roads and made access to food and water more difficult for nearly 1 million people.

                  Rescue workers are frantically searching for survivors but each passing minute dampen hopes that they will be found alive.

                   Regional governor Fonka Awa Augustine told Reuters people had built houses on hilly ground, despite government warnings, and a heavy downpour caused the ground to give way. -Reuters