Here's what the world must do about the Sierra Leone mudslide disaster

500 people are known to have been killed by the mudslide as yet

Another day, another disaster. The vulnerability of Sierra Leone makes any reference to “natural” disasters at best ironic, and at worst insulting. Poverty is not “natural”, and the overcrowding into poor housing that it causes is not “natural”. Even the extreme climatic and environmental conditions that precipitated the recent devastating mudslide on the outskirts of the capital, Freetown, are a function of man’s unnatural relationship with nature. But what to do about it?

As in all emergencies, it was those closest to the disaster that provided the immediate help. Those trapped in the mud would