Guinea: Conakry residents grapple with aftermath of landfill disaster

Residents in Guinea's capital Conakry have been left reeling, after part of a landfill fell on to neighbouring homes following heavy rains.

Although emergency crews have arrived at the scene, the incident claimed 30 lives and has left residents shaken.

Aboubacar Camara said, "at around 3am, 2am, we heard something sliding, a scream outside. Everyone was shouting, I called to my wife: "We can't stay in the house, people are screaming outside, let's go out. When we stepped outside, not even two or three minutes had passed."

In recent days, the government had ordered the eviction of people near the site due to concerns of a collapse. Some residents blame the state for the accident.

Among them is Abou Hamza, who said, "we, the young people of Dar es Salam, did everything we could to prevent this, but it didn’t stop the landslide from happening, because we organised sit-ins, we organised sacrifices, we invited the officials from the relevant departments, but they didn’t take it seriously. So that’s why today, with this landslide, I blame the State, because it didn’t take the necessary measures to have the dump closed. And yet they had promised us that, it’s been a year now."

One of the country's main opposition figures, former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, called for an investigation into the circustances leading up to the incident.