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Torrential rains in Sierra Leone’s capital felled the centuries-old Cotton Tree, a nationwide treasure whose loss has left “a niche” in individuals’s hearts, the nation’s President Julius Maada Bio mentioned Thursday.
“There isn’t a stronger image of our nationwide story than the Cotton Tree, a bodily embodiment of the place we come from as a rustic,” Bio advised the Related Press. “Nothing in nature lasts ceaselessly, so our problem is to rekindle, nurture, and develop that highly effective African spirit for thus lengthy represented,.’
Standing 70 meters tall and 15 meters broad, the roughly 400 year-old tree has been Sierra Leone’s nationwide image for many years.
It has appeared on financial institution notes, woven into lullabies and visited by royalty, akin to Queen Elizabeth the II, to mark the nation’s independence in 1961, in keeping with an announcement by Zebek Worldwide, a press company working with Sierra Leone’s authorities.
SEVERE WEATHER OVER SOUTHERN PLAINS TO BRING HEAVY RAIN, TORNADO THREAT
A bulldozer clears the fallen Cotton Tree in downtown Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Might 25, 2023. (AP Photograph/TJ Bade)
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Whereas the tree had withstood damage throughout the years, together with a lightning strike that has left it partially scorched, Wednesday’s storm left nothing of the tree however a stump.
For Sierra Leone, the loss is corresponding to the fireplace that destroyed Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral in 2019, mentioned Zebek, the federal government’s press company.
Sierra Leone is among the many nations most impacted by local weather change. In 2017 greater than 1,000 individuals have been killed by a landslide due to heavy rains.
President Bio mentioned he appears to be like ahead to discussions how finest to make use of the area.
“What the Cotton Tree represents will stay on: How one thing so huge and powerful can develop from one thing (as small) as a seed, how many individuals can collect collectively beneath the safety of one thing greater than the sum of their components; and the way for hundreds of years it might be an embodiment of our historical past, unity, and resilience,” he mentioned.
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