Videos circulating on social media showed flood waters from the aftermath of Wednesday’s heavy downpour halting President Julius Maada Bio’s motorcade.

The video, shared by a certain Bulldozer Daboh, showed Bio’s motorcycle escorts struggling against the heavy currents of the flood water on Wednesday evening, July 23 in the centre of the capital, Freetown. Sierraloaded did not independently verify whether the said motorcade is that of the President’s or not.

Wednesday’s intense rain has been described by many to be one of the heaviest since the start of the wet season in 2025.

The country’s National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) announced that the heavy downpour led to the death of three people and the missing of a 1-year-old girl at New England Ville in Freetown. Reports also indicate that properties worth thousands of Leones were destroyed.

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Sierra Leone has been hit by torrential downpours lately. The intense rains remarkably cause flooding in many parts of the country, especially the capital where gutters are clogged with plastic and other waste. Some authorities, including the Freetown Mayor, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr blamed climate change and poor city planning for recent flooding.

In August 2017, the country lost closed 1,000 people and displaced over 2,500 after heavy downpour caused a major mudslide at Regent, in the outskirts of the capital Freetown. That, meteorologists said the capital received over 1,000 mm of rain from July 1 to mid-August.

This year, the Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency (SLMet) warned that the country might suffer from severe flash flooding from intense rains.

Authorities have advised the local population to avoid disaster-prone areas and to exercise caution during heavy downpour.