Many live in makeshift dwellings or unfinished buildings that leak in the rains. A few dozen have better housing in Kuwait, in the Six Mile resettlement community on the far eastern semi-rural outskirts of Freetown.

But they too face problems: lack of educational facilities, markets, and healthcare. Many survivors say they never received the aid that was supposedly earmarked for them. 

The attention of the government and international development agencies has drifted. Not just from the survivors, but also from the disaster that led to such ruin.

Geologists say it is only a matter of time before another landslide occurs in Freetown, that not enough is being done to mitigate disasters. People still build on hill slopes. There are encroachments even into the ’red zone’ in and around Sugarloaf Mountain. Reforestation attempts have been patchy. And very little education or awareness about dangerous activities appear to have trickled down into vulnerable communities.

Unless remedial actions are taken soon, more lives could be uprooted—again.