Death toll from Uganda garbage landslide rises to 25

People look on as an excavator helps search for people trapped under debris after a landfill collapsed in Kampala on 10 August 2024. (Badru Katumba/AFP)

The death toll from a mountain of garbage that collapsed in
Kampala has risen to 25 with no hope of finding survivors, a minister said
Tuesday.

The huge mound in the Ugandan capital’s northern district of
Kiteezi collapsed on Saturday, burying people and livestock.

“By late yesterday evening, we had recovered 25 bodies,
and no survivors found,” said Lillian Aber, Uganda’s state minister for
disaster preparedness and relief.

“We don’t expect more survivors,” she told AFP.

It
was not immediately clear how many people were unaccounted for. The Ugandan
prime minister’s office said three children whose parents were still missing
were being sheltered.

Heavy rain has hampered the rescue as excavators churned
through the garbage. President Yoweri Museveni directed the army’s special
forces to help in the search.

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A 200-metre buffer zone has been created around the site,
and residents have been ordered to vacate, said Aber.

The 14-hectare landfill was established in 1996,
according to local media, and takes in almost all garbage collected across
Kampala, about 1 500 tonnes a day.

Kampala mayor Erias Lukwago said authorities were looking
for alternative dumping sites because of the closure of the Kiteezi landfill.

“The trucks are not collecting garbage at the moment
and streets are filled with garbage which may create a health hazard,” he
said.

Uganda and other parts of East Africa have been battered by
heavy rains recently. Mudslides in a remote mountainous area in southern
Ethiopia last month killed around 250 people.