12 bodies recovered from Cameroon landslides

 

Locator map of the border between Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria

Yaounde, Cameroon —

Workers have recovered 12 bodies following landslides that engulfed a road in the west of Cameroon, a regional official said Saturday, adding there is no hope of finding survivors.

State television CRTV reported the comments by the governor of Ouest region, Augustine Awa Fonka.

"In our opinion, there is no longer any possibility of finding survivors," he told the station.

Only 12 bodies had been recovered from the site of the disaster, the last of them on Saturday morning, he said.

Dozens more people are still missing, and the search for bodies is still continuing, he added.

Two landslides hit the Dschang cliff road Tuesday — the second as emergency workers were using heavy machinery to try to clear the road.

Vehicles hit included three coaches with around 20 seats each, five six-seater vehicles, and several motorbikes said Awa Fonka in an earlier statement.

Cameroon\’s roads are notoriously dangerous, with almost 3,000 deaths each year in accidents, or more than 10 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, published in 2023.

In early September, a tractor-trailer carrying passengers plunged off a cliff road into a ravine near the town of Dschang, killing eight people and injuring 62 others, including eight children.

 

By：VOA