Intensifying Rainfalls in Sierra Leone


A recent clip from Channel 4’s ‘Unreported World: Africa’s Perfect Storm’ surfaced on my Facebook news feed today and I felt I couldn’t let the tragedy go unreported on my own blog. The episode focused on the mudslide in Sierra Leone that destroyed the town of Regent on the outskirts of the capital, Freetown, on the 14th August. Despite being the deadliest natural disaster this year, with over 1000 deaths, the events were followed by a series of devastating storms in the Caribbean and North America and went largely unreported. Whilst not directly related to the food aspects of this blog, the tragic events bring the issues discussed last week sharply into focus. The mudslide was caused by torrential rainfall, in a country that is forced to import 90% of its food, largely due to a lack of water storage during the dry season. These stark figures highlight just how extreme inter-annual rainfall can be across Africa, with food insecurity perhaps not a result of annual water shortages, but rather an inability to capture such intense rainfall. This disaster emphasises how Africa is not simply an arid continent, rather, it is sometimes devastatingly the opposite. 

If you would like to donate to help those affected by the mudslide, you can do so here. 




Unreported World: Africa's Perfect Storm

It's been a summer of hurricanes and floods but one of the least reported incidents actually took the most lives. Unreported World went to a village in Sierra Leone just days after a landslide hit.

Posted by Channel 4 News on Monday, 16 October 2017

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