African cities face threat of landslides like Sierra Leone

FREETOWN - Natural and human factors made Sierra Leone's capital vulnerable to a landslide that killed more than 400 people this week: Heavy rain, deforested land and communities forced by overcrowding to live on steep hillsides.

Those vulnerabilities are mirrored in villages and cities across West and Central Africa that face a worsening threat from landslides, researchers say.

Hundreds are also missing after the side of Mount Sugar Loaf collapsed near Freetown on Monday in one of the worst flooding-related disasters in Africa in years. On Thursday, another landslide in a fishing village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 40.