Torrential rains have triggered landslides across several neighbourhoods of Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, burying homes under mud and leaving several dozen people dead according to a still-provisional toll. Rescue teams were continuing to search the debris, and authorities cautioned that the number of victims could rise as the operation went on.
The disaster struck after rainfall of exceptional intensity that overwhelmed hillside districts of the city. Slopes gave way and slid down onto houses below, and in the aftermath residents and emergency workers were left digging through mud and rubble in search of those who had been caught when the ground collapsed.
For families in the affected areas, the loss was devastating. One resident said she had lost her older brother, his wife and their children in the landslides. Nearby, another survivor kept searching through the debris, hoping to recover a few belongings and any trace of a life that had been buried under the mud.
The human toll was concentrated in the homes that were engulfed. In one house, ten people did not survive. Neighbours and rescuers managed to pull some people to safety, helping a woman and several children out of the wreckage, while others who had been close by had already been killed by the time help arrived.
Meteorologists described rainfall of extraordinary intensity. In the space of just two days, close to 30 percent of the rain expected for the entire season fell on Abidjan, and the cumulative total recorded since the start of June had far exceeded what would normally be seen for the period.
The hillside where much of the destruction occurred had already been identified as a high-risk zone. Authorities said awareness campaigns had been carried out, and technical-services teams had even begun acting on some of the houses built there, an indication that the danger had been recognised before the slopes finally gave way.
As night fell, the search operations were continuing, with the provisional death toll still expected to climb. The catastrophe underscored Abidjan's vulnerability to extreme rainfall, exposing how quickly informal housing built on unstable slopes can be overwhelmed when the rains arrive with such force.