Entrance of the place called Nkol-Etam in the Mbankolo district in the district of Yaoundé Il, on October 9, one day after the tragedy that occurred the day before. It’s around 10 o’clock. A pick-up from the national fire brigade leaves the neighborhood, leaving stains of human blood on the ground as it passes. Amid tears and cries of distress from local residents, he headed towards the Yaoundé central hospital, according to indications revealed a few minutes later by members of the police.
Not far from the above-mentioned entrance, the gate of a building is stormed by individuals who try, in vain, to enter the house. They are held back by gendarmes who are stationed there. In fact, in front of this building, vehicles from the national fire brigade are parked in which lifeless bodies extracted from the rubble below the house are placed, before being transported to the morgue of the central hospital. According to the official report, there are around thirty dead (28), three missing, twenty injured and 57 families affected by the tragedy.
Below the aforementioned house – which houses victims and dead bodies -, and as far as the eye can see, soldiers from the fire brigade and volunteers, using shovels, picks and machetes, search through the rubble . Wrecks of roofs, plates, freezers, tattered boards, dead animals and plants torn off and carried away by the water current, among others, are extracted from the ground, in mud, in the hope of finding human bodies. It’s around 10:30. The chances of finding survivors under this setting after more than 14 hours are dwindling, according to rescuers who are not losing hope. Solidarity is required, some people pass a cigarette butt around.
Local residents sitting – not far from the excavation area -, some of them on the ground completely wet from yesterday’s rain and the water from the fish pond which continues to flow in great waves, have teary eyes. Here and there, cries and mutterings are heard. An increasingly large crowd made up of local residents, but also curious people, invades the place as time passes.
At the origin of the tragedy, the transfer of the dike of an artificial lake-fish pond-on the evening of October 8. Still visible at the level where huge pieces of concrete and broken iron broke apart, having given way under the pressure of the rainwater that fell on the city that day. According to local residents, this pond dates from the colonial era.
In Yaoundé, this tragedy occurs after a previous one on November 27, 2022 in the Damas district in the district of Yaoundé III. Torrential rains caused the collapse of land on the side of a hill, killing around fifteen people. The city of seven hills is experiencing more uncontrolled and rapid occupation of so-called non-buildable zones. At the origin of this phenomenon, the low cost of land and the absence of control by the authorities.
